Javier Baron

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Camaret was primarily a fishing port dedicated primarily to sardines, which were caught in open boats in the Iroise Sea. There was also a small fleet fishing for lobsters and crayfish, although shellfish fishing remained marginal compared to sardine fishing, which, thanks to the establishment of canning factories, had become industrialized since 1870. In 1865, the railway line reached Brest. A few years later, fishmongers had learned to transport shellfish wrapped in straw or shavings in wooden crates. Marketing was able to reach the larger cities, especially Paris, where demand was growing. Some fishmongers familiar with the Spanish coast and aware that red lobsters were abundant and sold at low prices in Galicia and Asturias began importing shellfish, establishing their trade with the port of Vivero, Spain, although lobster and crayfish were more difficult to market because they had to be kept alive. About 300 nautical miles separate the tip of Brittany from Cape Finisterre, which, with average weather and favorable winds, could be sailed in 3 or 4 days by the fishing sailboats of the time.
The activity took place between Galicia and Asturias, around San Ciprien and Vivero (in Galicia) and Tapia (in Asturias), at a distance of about 12 miles, in the small ports of "La Marina Baixa" (Lugo province). Around twenty floating hatcheries were installed by the French in San Ciprien in 1881 (which were later authorized) and two or three in Tapia (Asturias). The quantities of lobster exported became significant. When the Breton ships arrived, the local and national Spanish press reacted quickly, first in 1879 by denouncing the presence of the first French sloop buying lobsters, and then, in 1880 and 1881, by reporting the presence of eight vessels carrying tons of shellfish. The Vivero fisheries commission conducted an investigation that led to a fishing regulation in September 1881, prohibiting the fishing and sale of shellfish from September 1 to March 1. Beginning in September 1881, lobster boats changed their schedule, and trips became more rare during the prohibition periods. Some boats transported sardines to Brittany, while others went as far as Peniche, Portugal, to search for lobster.
A few years later, in 1885, for the same reasons of resource protection, the Spanish government decided to toughen these measures with more restrictive regulations, prohibiting lobster fishing within 6 miles. Six miles from the coast, the seabed exceeded 100 meters, making lobster fishing difficult and difficult. This decision pushed lobstermen to move further south toward the Atlantic coast of Galicia, first toward Vigo and then toward Portugal. Subsequently, Camaret fishermen, building increasingly stronger boats, exploited the Rochebonne Bank, the English and Irish coasts, and began to extend their fishing zone southward. In 1905, three 15- to 18-ton vessels carried out a campaign in Spain and Portugal. It was a failure, first in Spain, where the limit was set at 6 miles, then in Portugal, where the limit was only 3 miles, which was a cause of rejection by Portuguese fishermen. Around 1911-1912, larger fishing vessels began to exploit the coasts of Spain and especially those of Portugal.
Fishing was carried out with cylindrical traps, built with chestnut slats, closed at each end by a net. The lobster, attracted by bait, entered the pot through a narrow neck. The pots, held in pairs by a rope, rested on the bottom, weighted with two stones. The net was connected to one or more buoys on the surface that served as markers. The pots or traps were hauled in several times a day. They were baited with two pieces of fish—gurnard, horse mackerel, sea bream, and sometimes sardines—placed on either side of the neck. To reach the fishing grounds, lobster skippers followed the line of commercial steamers that took them across the Bay of Biscay from the tip of Brittany to Cape Finisterre in Spain. This was a common practice; at night they saw their lights, and during the day their smoke. It was a simple navigation but sometimes dangerous in fog or bad weather. The navigational tools available to lobstermen in 1933 were limited: a nautical chart, a compass, a sounding lead to determine the depth near the shore, and a barometer. The skipper's experience did the rest. Lobster fishermen were great travelers.
In the mid-1930s, there was a certain recovery in the lobster industry, coinciding with the appearance in Camaret of the first square-stern boats, which foreshadowed the modern lobster boat type, although they still retained a substantial sail pattern. But for the first time, the hull shapes, fuller aft and ending in a transom with a vertical sternpost, were effectively adapted to motor propulsion. At the same time, the older sloops, which were gradually being equipped with more powerful and reliable engines, abandoned their classic rig, which remained unchanged until the mid-1940s. At the bow, the bowsprit was eliminated; generally, only a staysail and a reduced gaff mainsail were set, over a boom and peak shortened by a third. At the stern, they mounted a baticule fitted with a triangular sail, and a small wheelhouse located just forward of this mast housed the pilot's station and the steering wheel. In addition to the advancement brought about by motorized propulsion, the adoption of a motorized winch made the task of retrieving the traps on board much less arduous.
I wanted to represent this evolution of the lobster sloop by building two models of the same vessel at two different times in its existence: In the first case, around 1930, with the classic sloop rig it was initially fitted with, with a single mast, a large mainsail with a boom and peak, raised by a jib, and, towards the bow, a staysail and bowsprit with a jib. The second model shows the same vessel after its motorization in 1946, without the bowsprit, maintaining the staysail, and reducing the gaff with the boom and peak trimmed. It also had a stern-mounted jib with a triangular sail, with a small wheelhouse that housed the pilot's station and the steering wheel.

Starting from the 1850s, the sudden and growing fashion of crustacean fishing, particularly abundant in the environment of the Sein Causeway, motivated the locals to develop and build specific boats for these captures. The Isle of Sein is the emerged part of the Sein Causeway, a narrow submarine platform about 25 km long that extends westward from the granite promontory of the Point of Raz, at the western tip of Bretagne, France.
Initially, small flat-bottomed skiffs that were very maneuverable were used, mainly dedicated to capturing lobsters. Equipped with traps, but also with longlines, these light boats evolved until the construction, between 1900 and 1914, of larger and more efficient ships with lengths ranging from 9 to 12 meters. Usually fitted with a semi-deck, they also had a live well, fed through small holes in the lower part of the hull lining, which could hold up to three hundred lobsters.
These sloops were very seafaring, stable, and had smooth movements thanks to the liquid ballast of their fish tanks, allowing them to sail with ease even in waves or choppy seas and bring their live cargo to port. Furthermore, their well-defined V-shaped hulls gave them the necessary maneuverability to navigate the dangerous areas where they worked.
The model reproduces a sloop from the 1900s, intended for a crew of four or five men. The development of summer tourism at the beginning of the century also contributes to the consumption of large crustaceans, from the coast of Trégor to Belle-Ile-en-mer. From April to November, a large number of fishermen and sailors from the region, accompanied by their wives and children, emigrate to the ports of southern Bretagne.
In the first quarter of the 20th century, due to the scarcity of lobsters on the local coasts, fishermen begin to equip larger boats to travel to other fishing grounds, mainly to Mauritania, and the lobster sloops are gradually disappearing.

The first recorded evidence of fishing on the Elbe from Blankenese dates back to 1325. Later, in the 16th and 17th centuries, disputes with Hamburg fishermen are documented.

Among other things, the Blankenese  pfahlewer  is mentioned for the first time in the "Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Report" from 1787 by Pinneberg. The pfahlewer  The was the most common fishing vessel on the Lower Elbe at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, as shown by the fact that 172 pfahlewers were recorded in Blankenese alone in 1806. The fishing grounds were the Lower Elbe and the North Sea, and the species caught were flatfish such as plaice, sole and turbot, and in autumn and winter, smelt was caught in the ice-free Elbe. The fish were caught using drift nets, triple-folded nets or wall nets, which were set close to the bottom and in which the fish became entangled. These nets were up to 100 m long. The caught fish were brought alive to market in the  bünn
, which was the name given to the fish farm at the stern of the pfahlewer . The catches were sold in Hamburg and Altona and, when competitive pressures caused prices to fall, also on the Dutch coastal markets.
 
An important reason for the competitiveness of the Blankenese fishermen compared to the Dutch was the quality of the fish, which was due to the different fishing methods. The Dutch fished with a trawl net, the  Kurre.  According to Pinneberg in the Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Reports in 1787: “With this net… one sails and catches the fish that enter its mouth. One consequence of this is that the fish caught in the bag of the cod-end are often killed, injured or permanently disabled.” “Instead, the Blankenese fish with drift nets, triple- folded or wall nets, which are moved close to the bottom of the lake or the shore where the fishing is done, and in which the fish is entangled like a lark or a quail, and after the nets have been removed, it is released unharmed. The cost of such equipment is more than ten times that of the nets commonly used by the Dutch; “The Blankenese are only compensated for by their high catch reliability, quality and pleasantness.”

The  pfahlewers  were s around 15 m long and 3 m wide, had a sharp shape, a flat bottom and a particularly high bow with a cabin for a three-man crew. They had daggerboards on both sides of the hull and were fitted with a single mástil without shrouds, with a narrow, high square sail, supplemented by a small jib. Thanks to these features, the pfahlewer  could sail very well close hauled and was even used as a pilot boat on the Elbe.
 
On the Lower Elbe, the freshwater current of the river flows into the North Sea in the upper part, while, depending on the tide, the saltwater current of the North Sea flows into the Elbe in the lower part. In addition, the low tide continues on the north side of the Elbe, even when the high tide has already begun on the south side. If storms and floods are added to these special conditions, the course of the Lower Elbe can change quite quickly and, together, make this area difficult for navigation even today.
 
From 1111 Blankenese was part of the territory of the Counts of Schaunburg and from 1640 to 1866 it was subject to the Danish king, who inherited the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and ruled them in personal union. The fishing village later belonged to Prussia.
As a result of military conflicts during the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, the fishermen of Finkenwerder gradually acquired the pfahlewer  from the inhabitants of Blankenese and fished in the fishing grounds that the inhabitants had to abandon when they were persecuted by the English navy as members of the Danish kingdom, which was their enemy.
 
The model I am presenting dates back to that period and therefore bears the flag of Finkenwerder (Hamburg).
 
The end of the 18th century was also the heyday of fishing with these boats. Then, in the mid-19th century, trawling became increasingly popular, something that could not be done on the single-masted trawler. Then came the two-masted vessels, and with them the end of the pfahlewer .

The Eiderschniggen were cargo vessels of the Eider River, the Eider Canal and the North Wadden Sea. They were good sailors in calm, coastal waters, although they also made trips to England and Russia. They had a massive and long-looking hull, with lengths of between 15 and 17 meters.
The bottom of the ship, practically flat, rose only minimally towards the sides and the transition from the bottom to the sides was rounded and not bent at right angles as in the Ewer, the Elbe freighters, much more extended than the Eiderschniggen.
Another difference with the Ewer is that the Eiderschnigge did not have a flat stern but a round one. Like all flat-bottomed boats, they had to use lee daggerboards, otherwise they would not have been able to sail in cross or headwinds.
The Eiderschniggen had one or two masts and were rigged either as a ketch or as a sloop, as is the case of the model presented, which has a single mast with a gaff sail and a topsail, carrying a staysail and two jibs towards the bow.
Most Eiderschniggen were built in the shipyards of Nübbel an der Eider, although they were also built elsewhere on the Eider and Elbe. The Schniggen of the Elbe were not as full and thick in the bow as those of the Eider, presenting sharper lines with the somewhat inclined foredeck.
Although Eiderschniggen were never built in large numbers, in 1900 there were still 75 Schniggen, which disappeared shortly after the First World War.
The flag carried by the model, similar to the Dutch one but with the colors inverted, with the upper blue stripe, is that of the state of Schleswig-Holstein.

The tjalk is a historic Dutch single-masted sailing ship for transporting goods in the shallow coastal and inland waters of the Wadden Sea. In addition to their use in coastal shipping, tjalken were also frequently used, until the 20th century, exclusively as inland cargo ships. The tjalk has as its predecessor the bojer, a type of boat also Dutch. The term "tjalk" first appears in a Frisian document in 1673.
Tjalken are flat-bottomed boats, making them particularly suitable for sailing in shallow channels and tidal creeks, as well as for shallow water coastal travel. An additional advantage of the flat bottom is that these boats, when stranded at low tides, dry in a vertical position, thus resting the entire hull on the ground without tilting laterally, as boats with keels do. When the water rises, flat-bottomed boats automatically float back upright with the rising tide.
A disadvantage of keelless flat-bottom hulls is their lower stability against crosswinds. Boats of this design are prone to rolling around the longitudinal axis of the hull and deviating from course. To reduce this, tjalken mount movable daggerboards located on both sides of the boat's hull. In the event of a crosswind, the lee daggerboard is set to stabilize the boat.
The rig of a tjalk consists of a large gaff mainsail mounted on a short peak and a long main boom, as well as a staysail and, optionally, a jib, which requires a bowsprit to be launched.
Along with the ewer, the tjalk was one of the most common ship types in northern Germany for regional coastal and inland shipping in the 19th century. By 1900 in northern Germany there were around 160 iron and 28 wooden tjalken. The iron tjalken, built exclusively in Dutch shipyards, were especially successful. In 1928, 128 iron tjalken, with an average carrying capacity of 140 t each, belonged to the German inland fleet.
Many tjalken are now used for tourism. For example, these boats are often rented in the ports around the IJsselmeer. There is usually a captain and an officer on board. Guests assist with navigation maneuvers under the direction of the officer. Until 2013 inclusive, an annual sailing regatta exclusively for this type of boat, the Tjalkenrace Medemblik, was held on the IJsselmeer, opposite the small town of Medemblik in northern Holland. Mostly original tjalken still exist under the German flag. and Dutch, which are used as traditional boats with the corresponding authorization, as evocative monuments of times past that invite you to navigate the Wadden Sea and its adjacent waters. In addition to the examples in use, some tjalken are floating museum ships, while others are displayed dry in museums on navigation and industrial culture.

As a successor to the “Tjalk”, which due to its design was only partially suitable for sea navigation, a new type of coastal sailing ship emerged at the beginning of the 18th century, the “Schmack”, also known as “Schmackschiff” or “Smak”, a coastal and marsh sailing ship with a bottom flat, side daggerboards and rounded bow. She was a versatile and seaworthy cargo ship, responding to the increase in maritime trade along the southern coast of the North Sea. To improve seaworthiness compared to the “Tjalk”, the “Schmack's” hull featured fuller and more rounded shapes, greater draft and freeboard, and an increase in ballast that favored better stability. The flat-bottomed “Schmacks” were mostly equipped with outboard daggerboards, although examples with keel daggerboards were also built. It was equipped with two masts and a rig initially equipped with a spritpsail that was later replaced by a gaff. It could also mast a square flying topsail on the main mast, with a staysail and a jib in the bow. The mizzen mast, also called a “druil” mast, was placed on a crossbar located above the tiller, which was attached to the rudder shaft passing through a triangular opening in the stern, the so-called “hennegat”. This type of boat was in use in the Netherlands from the 16th to the 19th century and also in Germany from the late 18th to the 19th century, later being displaced by the “kuff”.
Model Features
• Length: 105 mm.
• Total length: 170 mm.
• Sleeve: 39 mm.
• Scale:1:200

Until the arrival of railways and automobiles, the sea was the main means of communication inside the fjords, and coastal ships were built in those places where wood was available, basically pine and fir, which led to the development of different types of boats over the years. One of them was this type of nordlandjagt, also known as a storebat (literally, “big ship”), which was a coastal vessel, used to transport livestock and agricultural products from farms, through the fjord canals, to the destination markets. Its hull, wide and long, was very full in shape and with little draft. It was equipped with decks at the bow and aft and was open in its central part. Its construction, which featured elements from its Nordic ancestry, could be clinker or carvel built. Forward, the stem rose until it became a great post that ended the bow vertically. It was rigged with a rectangular sail equipped with pieces of canvas, which could be removed to shorten the sail, while at other times it was raised by a flying topsail when what was wanted was to expand the area of the mainsail. Normally, ships were put ashore in winter. In addition, the ships were tarred from time to time, first the bottom and then the interior.

The trabaccolo, the most widespread vessel in the Adriatic in past centuries in its various types, only began to decline with the disappearance of the sail and the diffusion of faster and lower cost means of transport.
The hull of the trabaccolo has peculiar characteristics that are maintained from the Gulf of Trieste to the Otranto canal: the bow and stern of very full shapes, a minimum draft and a length-sleeve ratio, of the most classic, 3: 1, same as the one Roman ancient ships had.
In essence, this hull, equipped with a wide central hatch, offered maximum load capacity and good behavior at sea. It was basically a cargo ship destined for cabotage, although there was a smaller version, which was called barchetto, dedicated to fishing.
In its most common version, the trabaccolo carried two mast with lug sails and a long bowsprit with a sliding staysail.

The Marciliana, Marsiliana or Marziliana was a vessel of Venetian origin that appears very frequently in documents relating to traffic and navigation in the Adriatic, to the point of characterizing – in the 16th and 17th centuries – the one defined by the historian. J. C. Hoquet as “the Marcilian era”. Its use was always commercial, and following the indications relating to Adriatic traffic, we can see how it was used on increasingly longer routes. We find it initially used in communication with Istria, Romagna and the Marche; During the 16th century the routes were lengthened and it became the preferred vessel for transporting goods between Venice and the ports of Puglia, Spalato, Ragusa and Durazzo and towards the Ionian Islands. Reaching a larger size, he extended his trips to Sicily, the coasts of the Morea (Peloponnese), Crete and the Levant.
Very diverse goods were transported: wheat, rye, oil, wine, biscuits, cheese, walnuts, almonds, wallonia (oak bark and acorn skin used to tan leather), raisins, oranges, firewood, wood, animal feed, skins, fabrics, soap, the precious salt and even live cattle. The origin of the term marciliana – which is already present in medieval Latin from the year 1261 – has unleashed the fantasy of many researchers, but its etymology is uncertain. There are those who have speculated with a hypothetical derivation of S. Marco, out of devotion to the patron saint of Venice - with the meaning of the wood of S. Marco -, or also from the French port of Marseille, with which the Venetians maintained a great traffic. from the 12th century. Some have even ventured the hypothesis that the name comes from the shape of the boat's hull, which is reminiscent of a marsione (sea pig) and from there marsiane and later marsiliane; However, the most probable etymology seems to be related to the transportation of goods for which it was intended: marciliana, that is, nave “merciaja, quasi dir volesse nave per mercanzia, portatrice di merci”.
We lack sufficient information to be able to accurately determine the lines of its hull in the 13th and 14th centuries; We can only guess that it was a small boat with flat shapes, provided with a deck, rigged with a mast that made up a lateen sail and equipped at the stern with two side blades for steering. Between the 15th and 16th centuries there was a great development in the Adriatic of smaller vessels to the detriment of large sailing ships and while in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean there was the triumph of the caravel, in those waters the Marcilian became more and more widespread. Although by then it had already reached considerable dimensions, it could still navigate the mouths of large rivers due to its minimal draft. Immediately after the second half of the 16th century, there was a strong increase in large-tonnage shipbuilding, which gave a greater impetus to the construction of this type of ship.
The Marciliana, however, had the disadvantage of not being an armed ship, and also its shapes were not suitable for combat maneuvers, so it was very vulnerable to attacks by privateers and pirates, widespread in the Mediterranean and along the Dalmatian coast. For this reason, Venice did not welcome its uncontrolled proliferation, which, combined with its increase in size to the detriment of security, competed with the construction of the "armed ships" that the Venetian fleet desperately needed to guarantee traffic and impose its own supremacy over the seas and in particular in its "Gulf". Another important drawback that the Marcilians had was that they usually loaded non-precious merchandise, the transportation of which was reserved for "suitable ships" and galleys. Venetian merchants, who wanted to make ever greater profits, tried to load as many goods as possible onto the Marsilianas, even on deck, often creating a false deck, all to the detriment of the stability of the ship itself. The Marciliana was the ship of the time most exposed to being prey to privateers and pirates or a victim of shipwrecks and, surely, many of the shipwrecks that suffered were found at the bottom of the Adriatic. The Venetian Senate tried to remedy these intolerable overloads with the ordinance of November 4, 1589, which prohibited adding “altra coperta che le due con le quali sono fabbricate”, but this initiative proved useless. The Pregadi (citizens who, being members of the senate, were consulted by the Doge on the most serious issues) intervened drastically, trying to limit their radius of action and in 1602 they prohibited the Marcilians from going beyond the island of Zante and sailing in the Mediterranean.
From a certain point on, the construction of these ships became economically unattractive, since they were too expensive, especially those of larger dimensions, and thus in Venice the 78 Marsilianas of 1602 were reduced to 38 in 1619. To prevent their disappearance, In 1634, a permit was granted to the Marcilians – those with greater carrying capacity – to be able to sail to the island of Heraklion (Crete). The Marcilians once again gained importance in the Venetian merchant fleet throughout the 17th century, reaching 78 units in 1698, thanks to their extreme functionality. Pantero Pantera, in 1614, provides us with a description of the particular navigation equipment composed of “seven sails; six square, and one Latin”; while in a 1657 inventory transcribed by the historian J. Luetic we can see how the marciliana was equipped with three masts. A precious manuscript by Staffano de Zanne de Michel, proto of the Arsenal marangoni, dating from 1686, describes and provides preliminary drawings of the main Venetian ships. It gives us all the necessary dimensions to build the hull of a Marciliana from the mid-16th century, although clearly specifying how at this point “sono fabbriche che non hanno ne regola ne ragion accurate, ma ben si tute differenti”, because each captain proceeded to modify it according to your own convenience.
Thanks to this data and its information it is possible to reconstruct a Marcilian from the time, always taking into account that it could have very different shapes and dimensions. From this period we have quite rich iconography, which allows us to see how the Marcilians had mixed navigation rigs, composed of a set of four to seven sails, square and lateen. A lateen sail is always found at the stern, as was customary to better maneuver the rudder, sometimes reinforced at the top with a small square sail. The mainmast was usually equipped with two or three square sails, but sometimes instead of the mainsail it carried a large lateen sail. This mast always had a large topsail, and if a lateen sail was set up, it only had a square topsail, so maneuvering the lateen sail certainly could not have been too easy. The foresail mast was characteristic, strongly inclined forward, looking like a long bowsprit, with the function of the round and imposing bow resting well in the sea. Depending on the hull, the foremast was equipped with one or two small square sails.
The hull is characteristic: the bow is high and round, very similar to what we know from the oldest luggers, as is the stern, which tapers towards the axis with round but stylized lines. The foredeck and the aft castle, often protected by a poop, are clearly visible. The castle is not always closed aft by the transom, sometimes it seems like a simple natural elevation of the hull. At the beginning of the 18th century, brigantines, ketches, polacras and tartans successfully confronted the Marcilians' bet in the Mediterranean, forcing them to operate only in the Adriatic, where, however, new types of more agile vessels had been developed. and smaller in size. and cheaper: trabaccolos, pièlegos and brazzeras. The political-economic situation that developed in the 18th century in the Adriatic, with the new free ports of Trieste, Fiume and Ancona, favored the intense exchange between the ports of both shores, greatly reducing the need for ships with large capacity. load. The Marciliana thus suffered ruthless competition even on the routes traditionally traveled by it in the Adriatic, and its decline - which began in the first years of the century - became unstoppable, reaching its total disappearance in a few decades, without a trace left. this type of boat. This progressive disuse of the Marciliana meant that it did not survive the fall of the centuries-old Republics of Venice and Ragusa and the Napoleonic Wars: in fact, we can assume that 1780-1790 was the decade related to its disappearance. At the beginning of the 19th century, especially in Chioggiotti's documents, there is still evidence of the presence of the marciliana, called vascello da chebba a manzera, with characteristics that suggest a possible derivation towards the lugger during the 18th century, and then ended up being confused with this typology.

The model was made from a plan made in 1789 by the marine painter Antoine Roux and reproduced by Admiral Paris in his work “Souvenir de Marine Conservés”.
It wears only one mast perpendicular to the keel in its middle, which carries a large lateen sail, raised by an arrow sail as a flying topsail and a jib on a bowsprit. The hull, full-shaped and rounded, has a raised and concave stem and was low on board. The boat is closed by a complete deck with two cargo hatches and has a small locker companionway at the stern. The largest models of this vessel could reach 25 meters in length with a displacement of 100 tons. They were dedicated to cabotage in the western part of the Mediterranean basin, from Algeria to France and from Italy to Spain, transporting all types of merchandise, mainly wine and construction materials. The smaller tartans were dedicated more to coastal traffic.
At the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, tartans began to disappear due to the great growth of railways and road transport. The last units that were still maintained were replacing their original lateen rig with gaff sails.

In 1906, in the port of Le Bono, a village of Plougoumelen in the Gulf of Morbihan, more than a hundred forbans, on board of which fishermen worked with their trawl nets during the summer from Belle-Île to Île d 'Yeu, chasing soles, flounders and rays, while the women and retirees of the population were dedicated to the exploitation of flat oysters on the shores of the marsh. In the autumn the forbans returned to Quiberon Bay to fish for hake. The three men and the cabin boy in their crew carried the trawl net using the winch and the bow sheave. The starboard shroud of the mainmast was movable and was used for boarding the codend. Within the fishing communities that from Audierne to Les Sables d'Olonne assembled hundreds of fishing boats equipped, depending on the port and the season, with different gear, such as purse seines, lines, traps, etc., the sinners of Le Bono, specialists in coastal trawling, they occupied a unique position for practicing only one type of fishing. The creation of the fish markets of Le Croisic or La Trinité sur mer, connected to the railway network, together with the urbanization and expansion of La Baule or Saint Nazaire, played a fundamental role in this specialization, since they offered the fishermen of Le Bono an "economic niche" free of competition. A curiosity is that in French the term forban designates a pirate, someone who undertakes an armed expedition at sea for his own benefit without authorization. It is said that the fishermen of Seine (crew of the synagots) and other inhabitants of the Gulf of Morbihan considered those of Le Bono as surly and unsociable people. Thus, this nickname forban was given to both the fishermen of Le Bono and their boats.
 

The mackerel drivers, mostly originating from St. Yves in West Cornwall, were driftnet and gillnetters fishing for mackerel and herring from the mid-19th century, when the fishing industry expanded to meet the growing demand caused by the expansion of the railway network.
 
These luggers constituted a large fleet that began operating in May, sometimes reaching as far west as the Scilly Isles. In mid-summer, they would switch to herring catching, often fishing at Howth, near Dublin, with their crew of five to six men and a cabin boy.  
 
Drift nets were suspended vertically in the water with floats on top. The fish were trapped in their mesh by the gills, and when the nets were hauled in, they were shaken to dislodge the fish, which were then taken to the hold. The drift nets were made up of vertically joined sections, reaching a total length of up to a mile and a quarter.
 
Once the fish hold was full, the ships returned to port as quickly as possible, to make the first landing and get the best price for the catch, which could also be loaded on the train to London or another major city, where prices were higher.

The hengst, a traditional Zeeland sailing ship, was a flat-bottomed boat with side daggerboards built for navigation in the Scheldt delta, characterized by its numerous shoals, narrows and strong currents with clear tidal influence. They were used mainly in Oosterscheldem and Westerschelde for the capture of flounder and mussels, although they were also used to transport materials for the construction of dams and other various uses.
They were characterized by their straight bow with a pronounced inclination, finished with a strong vertical reinforcement in the upper part, and by their stern. It was more robust and less elegant in shape than other boats in the area, clearly showing with its image that the hengst was a work boat.

 
The Bahia saveiros were born in Recôncavo Baiano, in the shipyards of various locations such as Massaranduba and Cabrito in Itagipe, Santo Amaro, São Roque, Cachoeira, São Félix, Ilha de Bom Jesus, Madre de Deus, São Francisco do Conde, Santo Amaro de Catu, Tubarão, Salinas da Margarida, Conceição de Salinas, Itaparica, Caboto and other places with smaller shipyards, where shipwrights conceived and built boats with similar characteristics. Although there is no unanimity regarding the origin of the saveiro, the most common opinion is that it was brought from Portugal around the 16th century by emigrated builders from the Old World, who adapted to the needs and available materials of the new Portuguese colony. On the Brazilian seacoast, with a profusion of natural ports, and with a climate that is also conducive to sailing, coastal navigation was considered a basic need. The boats they used to cross the oceans were not the most appropriate to move around the small coves and thousands of islands.
 
These emigrated riverside carpenters brought with them the instrument and construction technique that was common in southern Europe at the time, with the use of gauges or templates that provided the dimensions and master sections of the future vessel. In Portuguese these templates are called graminhos, in Mediterranean France gabarit de saint Josef, in Venice sesto, in Genoa garibbo, in Sicily miezzo jabbu and in northern France trabuchet... 
 
Although in Portugal there are no ships equal to the Brazilian saveiro, it should be noted that it has aspects very similar to the Tejo varino ship and several things in common with the Fragata do Tejo and even with the Bote do Tejo, `so it can be said that its predecessor was the constructive tradition of the carpenters of the banks of the river Tagus.
 
The rig was made higher to adapt it to the winds of the area; As for the hull, it suffered variations in the height of the freeboard, the arrangement of the elements of the small foredeck, the rudder, etc. But important similarities remain, such as the type of rig; the shape of the stem, almost crescent; the square stern and the general dimensions that maintain practically the same proportions. Its greatest differences are found in the saveiros closed with tijupá (a kind of gabled roof-roof), those that have a cabin at the stern for crew accommodation and those that have the stern rabo de peixe,(similar to the stern of the canoes) 
 
One of the most unique characteristics of the saveiros is that their masts are not braced, that is, they do not have any rigging to hold the masts, which are quite large, since they can reach heights of more than 20 meters and weigh more than a ton. The spars are maintained due to the construction technique, because they unfold with a pronounced slope towards the stern of the boat, supported by their own weight. In addition, the quality of the wood and its flexibility are other factors that contribute to the maintenance of the masts. According to Lev Smarcevisky, Bahian architect author of a study on saveiros  "the perfect hydrodynamic shape of the hull, integrated into the frame and the sail plan, is the main conservation factor of the entire system."
 
Smarceviski's study is very interesting. In it he shows that the greatest danger of breaking the mast, paradoxically, occurs when the ship is at anchor and the sails are furled. In this case “even with small and rhythmic waves, the movement of the mast can enter into resonance, in an increasing sway, until breaking”.
 
The saveiros are exclusive vessels of the state of Bahia, and different types can be observed among them, such as:
 
 • Saveiro with an open stern, with a gaff sail and jib, frequently presents the tijupá (the aforementioned roof in the form of a gabled roof). 
 
• Saveiro rabo de peixe: with a sharp stern, two masts, square sail on the foresail and gaff sail on the mainsail and also equipped with tijupa. 
 
• Saveiro whaling, a single mast and a sail reminiscent of the European third sail, with a black hull and equipped with oars.
 
 • Saveiro perné: three masts and bowsprit, with jib and sometimes a genoa, square sail on the foresail and gaff main and mizzen sails. Used to transport people and goods between towns outside the Bay of All Saints
 
 • Saveiro perua: three masts, the foresail with a square sail and the main one with a gaff, which are set one next to the other, and a gaff sail also on the mizzen. It is a large saveiro, equipped with a tijupa and an extension at the stern called a xapité.
 
 • Fishing saveiro, with two masts, jib and lateen sails. Used for deep sea fishing.
 
 
With rigs like the one described, the crew members of the saveiros show and be true masterminds of the maneuver, since they guide the vessel within the same port, lowering and hoisting sails, to make it turn, all without any help, while the skipper deals with the rudder and mainsheet. Given the climatic conditions that usually occur in its waters, with the trade winds blowing very hard, some showers and fresh winds from the south, one cannot help but admire the navigation that these boats carry out, with such flexible masts and hard maneuvers that require a great skill, an idea of which is had by observing the enormous mainsail, with its sheet devoid of rigging. The gaff sails that they carry, with loose legs and no boom, are attached to the mast by a rope and have a surface area of close to 120 square meters, being tall and narrow (3 to 4 m wide). The hull is made of wood, with lengths of 12 to 15 meters, a beam of 4 to 5 and 1.50 m. of strut. In the bow they have a small deck that is used for maneuvers. The bottom is almost flat, which allows it to run aground with minimal heeling when the tide goes out, thus allowing loading and unloading between two tides.

Pinky schooners, a common type of New England fishing vessel, sailed from local Cape Ann ports from the early 18th century to the early 20th century. In 1839, there were 64 registered pinky schooners in Cape Ann and its district. Pinkies were generally small boats from which men fished overboard, and were known for their seaworthiness. These distinctive-looking vessels were so common that viewing many marine paintings of the period usually shows one or two pinkies in the background, as is the case in many of the works by the painter Fitz Henry Lane on view in the National Gallery of Washington, D.C.
These little fishing schooners could be crewed by just a couple of men, unlike some of their larger sister ships that plyed the waters of Bath and other Maine shipbuilding cities. The term "pinky" comes from the stern of this type of schooner, which is sharp and raised. Its origin goes back to the European fishing boats of the 17th century, which inspired the boats that were in use in North American waters before the American Revolution, initially known as chalupas, from which the chebacco boats were born, which could have a square stern or pointed. They had two masts and a crude cabin with bunk beds and a brick stove, as well as a fishing hold below decks. The pinky was a slightly larger chebacco boat with schooner rig. There are depictions and models of pinky hulls dating back to the early 18th century, although much of what is known of these ships comes from Lane's aforementioned paintings.
 
The pinky was well adapted to ocean fishing and could venture from shore to outer waters. In 1873, a publication called The Fisherman's Memorial described them thus: “These little ships, owing to their extreme buoyancy and offering so little resistance to the power of the ocean waves, perform comparatively well at times when the larger ships are working, sinking and tensioning each plank and wood to its maximum resistance capacity. They ride almost level keel on the crests of the highest waves and settle in the hollows with the ease and grace of a wild duck.” The pinky fisherman usually fished from the side of the boat with nets, or with lines and hooks. Although the pinky had a long career, it fell out of use at the beginning of the 20th century, like most other work vessels. But because of her good looks and good behavior, and also her place in Maine history, some have been restored and continue to sail while new ones are being built today.

Shallow draft, wide beam, cutter rigged fishing vessel used primarily for shrimping in the Thames and Medway estuaries until the early 20th century. Its rig differed from that of the "smacks" because it lacked a boom on the mainsail, so it could be easily furled when working with trawls. The hull featured a sharp water inlet that quickly widened to a fairly wide beam at mast height, and thanks to the powerful hull sections, the bawley could spread her large sails even in a fairly strong breeze.
 
The name bawley probably derives from the onboard stove with cauldron used to 'bawl' (Essex slang for “boil”) shrimp immediately after they were caught.
 
The bawleys left each morning for the sea and returned in time to put their catch on the afternoon freight train that carried it to the markets. To do this, they were equipped with a winch and a strong manual windlass that made it possible to unload the catch on land anywhere in the port.
 
Length: 11.60 m.
Beam: 4.0 m.
Draft: 1.50 m.
Mast height from deck: 15.20 m.

The Setúbal hiate has its origin in the Dutch cabotage ships that in the 18th and 19th centuries went to the estuary of the Sado river to load salt. Setúbal salt, which had the property of bleaching fish in the salting process, was a highly appreciated product in northern European countries and played a fundamental role in the appearance of Setúbal hiate on the Portuguese coast. To appreciate the importance that this type of vessel had in Portuguese commercial navigation, it is enough to mention that in the year 1854 the hiates accounted for more than 50% of the total tonnage of ships with a tonnage of less than 100 m3 of the merchant Portuguese fleet, reaching that percentage of 95% in the port of Setúbal.
 
The Setúbal hiate was not the only hiate existing on the Portuguese coast, since that denomination designated a type of boat with two masts of equal height, in which both were rigged with a gaff sail and with one or two staysails on the forward mast.  A typical feature of the Setúbal hiate was that while the foremast was vertical, the main one had a marked inclination towards the stern. The fixed rigging was made up of two shrouds overboard for each mast and one or two stay in the front, while the tops of the masts are linked by a rope called a vergueiro. The gaff sails had two or three rows of reefs and were attached to the masts with chestnut rings while the staysails were done by means of metal rings. A peculiarity of this boat was the way in which the sheet maneuver of the main gaff sail was fixed, which ran on a guide (berimbau) in the shape of a large ring fixed to the top of the stern.
 
The hull was characterized by a typical bow with a dock and a short almost horizontal bowsprit, a rounded stern with the rudder on the outside and a continuous deck with two large cargo hatches behind each of the masts, and two small hatches, one forward. and another at the stern, for crew accommodation. The most notable feature of the hull was the rounded bow in contrast to the more tapered stern, evoking an almost unchanged 18th century design.
 
The dimensions that the hiates showed were a length of 15 to 19 m., a beam of 4.3 to 5.2 m. and a depth of 1.5 to 1.7 m.

The cargo varino appear as a response to the need to transport certain goods (cork, salt and wood) both from one river of the Tagus to the other, as well as for the cargo of the merchant ships that were waiting anchored at its mouth. In the last years of the 19th century, cork factories and warehouses were established on the south river of the Tagus, in the area of Moita, Amora, Seixal, Arrentela and Sarilhos. They were areas of long beaches with swampy areas that were exposed at low tides, making their access very difficult or impossible for boats that, due to their round bottom and keel, had an excessive draft for those shallow waters and In addition, they were heavily heeled when they ran aground, unlike the varinos, whose flat bottom allowed them a good horizontal trim. The varinos were flat-bottomed boats that had two cabins, the forward one for the crew and the stern one for the skipper, and an open central space for cargo stowage. Its stern was squared and its rudder was handled with a cane. Initially they were rigged with a bastard lateen sail, which evolved into a gaff sail spanned to a mast (mão da carangueja) with a marked backward inclination and equipped with one or two stays. Their displacement reached 80,100 and up to 120 tons, and their lengths reached 20 m.

The bateiras ílhavas , as their name indicates (Ílhavo is a Portuguese city, located in the district of Aveiro) are boats that, although they originated in the Ria de Aveiro, fished in the mouth of the Barra de Lisboa during the months of winter and were stranded in the summer on the beaches of Algés and Pedrouços, where the fishing companies had straw huts and clothes lines to store their nets and equipment. During the summer the staff stayed on land, working in the Torreira and Costa Nova areas.
 
Each company of thirty men had two boats with which they towed their tarrafa , a type of surface trawl net with which they fished for sardines, by oar. The bateiras ílhavas were also intended for the collection of moliço , aquatic lagoon vegetation used for fertilization and the transformation of sandy riverbanks into farmland.
 
The bateira ílhava was an open boat, with thin and elongated forms, a flat and arched bottom, with a fluttery bow and stern, shriveled and curved in the shape of a hook. Its length was around 14 m., and its beam 2.5 m. The boat could be propelled in two ways:
 
By means of two large oars, about nine meters long, which were each handled by six men: three oarsmen on foot who held the handle of the oar, and faced the bow and pushed, and another three facing them who looked towards the stern and they talked about the cambão (rigging of ropes that for this purpose was moored at the head of the oar) With a lug sail, for which it mounted a short mast slightly inclined towards the stern in a central position.  
The bateiras ílhavas were completely tarred, so they were black and had practically no decoration, unlike the moliçeiros , of which they seem to be predecessors.
 
Characteristics of the model
 
Length: 120 mm.
Beam: 24 mm.
Scale: 1/115

The culé was a river boat that sailed from Rossio ao Sul do Tejo, in the middle course of the Portuguese Tagus, to the Lisbon estuary, transporting various cargoes and local and regional products. Its flat bottom, with “L” frames, stands out, with the reinforcement of a strip in the meeting between the bottom and the sides (which is why it was also known as " varino de pau de aresta ") and its characteristic large rudder with transverse cane, which was handled with a tackle on each one of its sides ( leme de xarolo ), a mode of government similar to that ridden, among other vessels, by the muletas , the moliceiros , the mercanteles and the ilhavos .

The botter was originally a fishing boat from the southern part of the Zuiderzee, now known as the IJsselmeer, a lake created in a former shallow inlet of the North Sea, from which it is separated by a long artificial breakwater.
 
The botter was used for both trawl and gillnet fishing, and to keep the catch alive it was provided with a free flooding fishwell amidships for keeping the catch alive. Probably developed from barges, it was a fast sailing ship and one of the most elegant Dutch fishing vessels. It was built in many shipyards around the Zuiderzee: in Monnikendam, Durgerdam, Marken, Spakenburg. Kuinre, Candle Block, Volendam, Urk, Muiden and especially in Huizen.
 
The botter has a slightly V-shaped hull, with a projecting keel, angular bilges, and a smooth, convex, open rim. The curved bow slopes forward sharply, while the stern is straight with a fairly vertical drop.
 
The raised bow descends in a gentle curve to the low stern. The boat has a deck that goes from the bow to the mast. Behind it appears the hold in whose center is the livewell. The rig consists of a non-stay-stayed mast carrying a narrow gaff sail and a wide foresail or main jib. It could also carry a bowsprit in which a jib could be released.
 
Sometimes, a triangular sail was also added, supported by a spinnaker pole, flying aft, behind the main gaff.
 
Many botters ended up being converted into yachts, the covered space forward provided reasonably large and comfortable accommodation, and many Dutch pleasure boats follow the lines of the botters.

The Marmara “kancabaş” was a cabotage trade boat, of whose existence the first known evidence dates back to the 16th century and which survived until the end of the 19th century. These boats were built in the Gulf of Izmit and in Iznik, and had lengths of around 15-20 m. They generally sailed within the Sea of Marmara, from the Bosphorus to the Dardanelles, although they also sometimes crossed those straits and sailed the Black and Aegean Seas.
 
The plan followed for the construction of the model belongs to the collection of "Souvenirs de marine" of Admiral Paris from 1882. 1855. The ship, wide and robust, has decks at the bow and stern, both equipped with hatches closed with barracks, and it had discovered the central cargo space which, after stowage, was covered with tarpaulins to protect the goods from the sun and rain. This cargo space had four removable benches, on which a walkway was placed that facilitated the transit of the crew between the fore and aft decks.
 
The Marmara “kancabaş” was equipped with a spritsail, two jibs and two or three square sails. It was profusely decorated with carved and gilded frets on brightly colored backgrounds, both on the sides of the bow and stern and on the rudder bar and blade. The skipper of the boat was at the helm, which was quite hard to handle due to the pronounced curvature of its bar.

With this model I put an end to the series of Greek boats that I have been doing lately
 
The model represents a “tserniki” from Mykonos, whose main sail (which the Greek call “semi-lateen”) actually consists of a gaff or gaff sail mounted on a long yard. The sail remains aft of the mast, but the yardarm crosses it and continues forward without rag. It is very reminiscent of the old gaffsails that appeared on the ships of the 17th century and that were gradually replacing, it seems that cutting them down, the lateensails ones that were armed on the mizzen mast.
 
The “semi-lateen” rig was sometimes considered by some to be a “sakoleva” type rig, but there is no doubt that there are notable differences between the two.
 
The model reproduces a small merchant and fishing ship from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and can be seen in old photos of the Cyclades Islands.

The bracera is a traditional coastal cargo sailboat from the Adriatic, originally from Dalmatia, whose origin dates back at least to the 16th century, when it first appeared in the chronicles. Together with its larger sister vessels, the Trabaccolo and the Pièlego, the braceras formed the backbone of the commercial fleet in the Adriatic Sea, with the single-mast being the most abundant and well-known, although there were also specimens of two and even three masts. The bracera was a solid and agile vessel, with a good load capacity, making it particularly suitable for trade and communication between the many islands of the Adriatic and the neighboring coasts. These boats were dedicated to the transport of wood for construction and firewood, mainly from Senj to the south and the islands, and also for the transport of salt, sand, wine, olive oil and everything that was produced on the islands, from Istria to Dubrovnik. In Istria they were also used for fishing and in Dalmatia for collecting sea sponges.

The “tsernikis” were boats with a sharp bow and stern and a straight stem with a pronounced inclination. Its name may come either from the Turkish ship "tsikirne" or from a boat used on the Danube called "cernik" or "cirnik".
 
Mainly built by the riverside shipwrights of the eastern Aegean islands and the coastal cities of Asia Minor, the “tsernikis” were used as small cargo and transport ships and were the backbone of trade at the time, traveling between the islands. from Mytilene, Samos, Chios, and others, reaching Istanbul, Aivali, Smyrna, etc. These boats were also used for fishing.
 
These “tserniki” hulled ships featured different sails. In this case, the model appears with a gunter rig, with a large triangular-shaped sail whose luff is attached to the mast at the bottom and at the top to a yard that is hoisted against the mast.
 
A peculiarity that these “tsernikis” with gunter rig have is the bowsprit that makes it possible to move the tack point away from the stern, a boom that is fixed with an eyebolt on a column mounted aft of the mast and is supported by a structure called “bridge ”.
 
Although the articulation of the bowsprit could allow certain movements, in navigation it appears immovable as it is secured on the "bridge". It is possible that, as happens with the bowsprit on other Greek vessels, the mobility of this bowsprit allows these “tsernikis” to get rid of obstacles in the traffic congestion of some ports, as well as dock from the stern in narrow docks.
 
Model Features:
 
Length: 120 mm.
Overall length: 188mm.
Sleeve: 37mm.
Scale: 1:130