Long-lining Like fishermen elsewhere the men of Tor Bay originally used a technique known as long-lining for deep sea fishing.
As its name suggests, long-lining involved towing a long line through
the water, with baited hooks suspended from it at regular intervals.
By the 19th century in the North Sea a complete set or “string”
consisted of 180 lines (each 240 feet long) daisy-chained together, with
hooks every nine feet. That meant the string was eight miles long and carried 4,680 hooks, each of which had to be baited with a whelk.
Whelks were big business. Around 150,000 baskets of them were
used up annually.
This was a laborious and inefficient way to farm the sea and make a
living. But help was at hand.The sailing trawler had arrived and the days of hooks and whelks were numbered.
BM321 “Terminist” being launched, 1912
SAILING TRAWLERS
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