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This Fishing Life: Part V

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  Pelagic fishing (mid-water trawling) I can’t now remember which of our vessels dipped a mid-water trawl first. But it was certainly before we acquired the Vig. And although I don’t remember it Carmania certainly tried it because I do remember an article in the Plymouth evening paper from that time proclaiming the “largest catch of Pilchard for “x” years landed by Plymouth trawler Carmania.” That was 17 tons if my memory is correct. And of course several of our vessels had a go at the Sprat fishery. So we must have bought trawls for them as we didn't make them, as we did with the bottom trawls; presumably from Bridport Gundry, the netting and fishing supplies company of that town. (Cosalt had a small outlet in Quay Road, and Mashford and Coads Brothers had retail outlets for clothing, gloves, twine and cordage, etc. on the Barbican. But Bridport Gundry were the go-to for trawls and bulk netting.) Perhaps the trips up to Bridport were when we bought the Sprat nets, and later mid...
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This Fishing Life Part IV

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 This Fishing Life 1969 -  1980 Part IV More Company Business.  I don’t know why (I don’t think I was even a party to the idea. At least I don’t remember it.) we next bought a 60 ft. steel trawler from Holland, called the Greitje von Bouje (or something like that!) and put one of our long-term crew aboard her as Skipper. But about this time we were also approached by a Robert Doe (I believe he had a big agricultural machinery business in East Anglia) and his agents, to go into partnership. He would own the vessels, and we would manage them. (He even “loaned” us the expertise of his business manager, who introduced me to the dark art of budgeting!) So for starters we sold him the GVB. So now we had four vessels of our own and were managing one for Rbt. Doe. But we were obviously getting too big for our boots. Rbt. Doe didn't last long, and Doug wanted to be independent. So he left us and took the Stella as his pay-off. But then we bought the Vigilance. I think that was Mi...
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