A line, to which markers or ‘knots’ were attached at eight fathom (47ft 3inches to be precise) intervals, was wound on the reel which one man holds over his head. To the end of this 500ft line was bent a canvas bucket or triangular chip-log drag, a wood panel weighted on one side so that [...]
By Mike Smylie A few issues back we looked at the cobles of the coast of eastern England and this time round we’ll travel over the border to investigate the just-as-unusual cobles used, in the main, for the Scottish inshore and river salmon fishery. Although the etymology of the word is unclear – some say [...]
By Mike Smylie Tucked into a quiet corner of Pembrokeshire, Tenby was once the greatest fishing harbour in Wales and its Welsh name of Dinbych-y-pysgod (little fort of the fishes) gives a clue to the ancient provenance of this. Back in the 17th century Pembrokeshire was noted for its immense stocks of fish with, according [...]
Mercator’s 1569 World Map: it introduced his projection, but the content was also partly based on the ‘portolan’ charts which featured navigational observations by sailors at sea Mercator’s projection proved to be one of the most significant advances in cartography; it heralded a new era in the evolution of maps and charts and is still [...]
By Mike Smylie For a tiny Outer Hebridean island with a small population, Grimsay has had an incredible amount of boats locally built for the lobster fishery. In 1846 the census showed 269 inhabitants, and this had reduced to 169 by 2011, despite the building of a causeway connecting the island to North Uist and [...]
By Mike Smylie I owned an Itchen Ferry once and have fond memories of her beached alongside the old Supermarine shed at Woolston, across the river from Southampton. Pal of Itchen she was called though she was no pal of the new bridge they were building at the time. We – me and my Pal [...]
Jack London was a celebrated writer when in 1907 he decided to drop everything and sail around the world in his yacht, Snark. By Sam Jefferson The concept of fitting out a yacht for bluewater sailing and heading out on a round-the-world cruise seems almost humdrum these days, but when Jack London announced that he [...]
Take a few minutes to check out a new website just launched last week - featuring Ester, the 1901 champion racing yacht designed by Gunnar Melgren. Ester's radical lines with her dagger keel gave her an extreme performance and she was a legend in Baltic yachting circles. But she sank offshore in the late 1930s [...]
A rare bronze astrolabe navigational instrument belonging to a shipreck from Vasco da Gama's 1502-1503 voyage of exploration to India has been identified by scientists from the University of Warwick. Astrolabes, the bronze graded discs used by renaissance mariners to determine their latitude, are extremely rare... until recently only 107 had been found in the [...]
