# Getting your Rating On a Fishing Boat



## ecb (Mar 24, 2011)

My Father Ran away to Sea on the fishing boats in Liverpool 1928/29.when he was thirteen
In his First Discharge Book 1932. R112611 his rating is O/S. S.S. Matakana Shaw Savill
I can find no information he had a previous Book.
I have made inquiries before and was told the fishing boats out of Liverpool were mainly Smacks Three Men and a Boy so it would appear he was on them round three years.I believe on the Fishing Boats you didn't need a book and got Paper Discharges so how would you progress
in time from Deck Boy to Ordinary Seaman I think he may have done a Pier Head Jump and The Shipping Agent May have given him that Rating for time Served?Unfortunately I never got to having a Conversation with My Dad over this as He Died before talk to him about his younger days he never saw old age A great man gone to soon. most of if is second hand info and conjecture.
I dont suppose there would be any records left?I went to The Albert Dock Maritime Museum in Liverpool who had little or no information about the fishing boats out of Liverpool Any Help or suggestions would be gratefully received.
Thanks
ECB


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## Douglas Paterson (May 2, 2010)

There were a small number of steam trawlers registered in Liverpool in the 1930's and several larger motor boats as well. I don't know if they ever operated from Liverpool or from one of the main fishing ports.
Douglas


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## Barrie Youde (May 29, 2006)

How would you progress?

My own guess is that although fishing from Liverpool in the early 1930s was not a major part of the operations of the port, it was nonetheless sufficiently well regarded that if a chap really could show, at the age of sixteen, that he had some three years of experience at the fishing, the securing of a berth as an ordinary seaman in a deep-sea liner company would be something of a shoe-in.

People talk. There is a strong possibility that your Papa would have impressed somebody sufficiently well to give him a leg-up. It seems fairly clear that things were not nearly as formal at that time as they became in the post-war years.

I've never forgotten my own father telling me how in 1932 he secured a berth as uncertificated Fourth Officer in Blue Flue. At the time, Dad was aged 22 and a Senior Apprentice in the Liverpool Pilotage Service. He needed to serve some deep-sea time in order to qualify before sitting for Second Mate's Certificate. Dad had managed to impress Tom Small who, at the time, was the senior pilot for Blue Flue. Tom accompanied my Dad to India Buildings one morning; and on the stairs they met Sir Richard Holt. Tom introduced my Dad to Sir Richard - and the rest, for Dad, was a shoe-in for the next two years, after which he progessed further.


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## ecb (Mar 24, 2011)

Thanks to you both for information
ecb


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## alan ward (Jul 20, 2009)

I had a print by Sam Bass a Liverpool Marine artist of smacks leaving Albert Dock to fish.


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## ecb (Mar 24, 2011)

Thanks for that Alan.
ecb


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## nse (Apr 15, 2017)

I came across this thread wile researching the Hoylake smacks and can give a few answers and thoughts. Having grown up and lived in Hoylake during the 50s and 60; sailed in offshore yachts out of there during the 70s and 80s; and been operational lifeboat crew for 10 years in the 90s I have always been close to the famous Hoylake fishing family names. Armitage, Bird, Dodd, Eccles, Evans, Jones, Sherlock and Triggs of my generation were friends and acquaintances if not shipmates. Of the local Nobbies that came before and after the smacks (the word 'smack' is of Dutch origin) much is known, including their builders and several survive as yachts. But of the smacks, nothing other than old photos in the popular "pictures of the past" publications. This fascinated me for the heyday of the Hoylake smacks wasn't that long ago: maybe 1880 to 1920 but there seems to be no or very little living memory or stories passed down. And for Hoylake read Liverpool as Hoylake far outshone Liverpool as a fishing centre in this period and in fact the 50-strong fleet of smacks re-located to the Albert Dock in 1887 as we shall see below.

But first off, to answer some questions regarding ecb's father: The various Merchant Shipping Acts from 1833 onwards established registers of seamen, centralised and otherwise, leading to the Discharge Book (Continuous Discharge Certificate) that you mention. This came in around the early 1900s and of course, continues today. But fishing boats were always exempt from this so there will not be any register of fishing crew, nor even a discharge ticket from the skipper. Fishermen were and still are described as Share Fishermen; they were self-employed and were paid on the basis of a share of the catch. No fish meant no pay. So even with the names of likely smacks working out of Liverpool at the time, there will be no crew lists.

You mention three years service in this thread. This is probably not coincidence. The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act states that to be rated A.B. a seaman must serve four years "before the mast", however, three years' service in a decked fishing boat followed by one year in a trading vessel would be equivalent. So your Dad could use his time in the fishing smacks to gain his rating.

*The Hoylake Smacks*
But back to the smacks and originally of the "Hoyle Lake". Norman Ellison (aka Nomad) writes in his 1950 book _The Wirral Peninsular_:

"The fishing now is no longer a paying proposition. Local fishermen blame the great increase in the number of seals, but it seems more likely that the real causes are increased pollution and the colossal number of immature fish killed by every haul of the shrimp-trawl. Before the First World War Hoylake was a fishing centre with a fine fleet of some fifty deep-sea smacks. They were ketch-rigged vessels about 60 feet in length and some 40 tons in gross register. They carried beam trawls of about 50 feet spread, and steam capstans for hauling the nets and hoisting the sails . The crew consisted of three or four men and a boy: they left on a cruise which might take them anywhere in the eastern area of the Irish Sea between the Isle of Man and Cardigan Bay and last up to three or even six weeks. About 1887 the 'Lake' became so badly silted up that the smacks used to sail from the Albert Dock, Liverpool. The coming of the steam trawler with its ice-plant at the turn of the century, rang their death-knell and gradually they disappeared. With them went Hoylake’s importance as a fishing port: really adventurous deep- sea fishing was superseded by trawling for shrimps and flatfish by Nobbies seldom further out than the Bar Lightship."

In fact they would go out on voyages lasting up to three months putting in at different ports in Wales and the south coast of Ireland and as far afield as Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel.

I have a lot more background and some photos which I'm working on now and will post links in due course. This site doesn't handle pictures well!

More soon,

N


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## alan ward (Jul 20, 2009)

Re:- Nobbies

My late father in law had a friend who owned one and Ben used to crew for him as they sailed it on the Mersey.For some years it was on display at the Nautical Museum at the Albert Dock.It was on the quayside opposite the Edward Gardner.I have a photo somewhere of it and him,if I can dig it out I`ll post it.


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## ecb (Mar 24, 2011)

Hello There N.S.E.
Many Thanks for your Detailed reply and taking the time to put it together it is much appreciated.
Regards
ecb


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## nse (Apr 15, 2017)

Some more details and pictures here. I will add Comments for feedback in due course but for the moment any questions or comments post here.

Grab a coffee (or something stronger) and have a read!

Cheers

Neil


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## nse (Apr 15, 2017)

If the link doesn't work it is http://hoylakesmacks.com

N


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## ecb (Mar 24, 2011)

Neil,
Have been reading some of the stuff you send interesting,
Was watching a T.V. program about British coast lines and was showing the Mersey and a lifeboat station that had been covered in sand with erosion and talking about the heavy loss of life of the life boatman at the eighteenth century.
Regards
ecb


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