A Brixham trawler is a type of wooden, deep-sea

fishing trawler A fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets th ...

first built in

Brixham Brixham is a coastal town and civil parish, the smallest and southernmost of the three main population centres (the others being Paignton and Torquay) on the coast of Torbay in the county of Devon, in the south-west of England. Commercial fish ...

in Devon, England, in the 19th century and known for its high speed. The design was copied by

boat builder This is a list of boat builders, for which there is a Wikipedia article. Motorboats (<50 feet)

* American Skier *

s around Britain, and some were sold to fishermen in other countries on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

. The Brixham trawler was a heavy displacement boat of some 60–80 ft length on the deck, with a long straight keel, a straight vertical stem, usually a fantail stern, and a low freeboard to ease the handling of the nets, though this feature was disguised by high bulwarks. Brixham trawlers carried a tall

gaff rig Gaff rig is a sailing rig (configuration of sails, mast and stays) in which the sail is four-cornered, fore-and-aft rigged, controlled at its peak and, usually, its entire head by a spar (pole) called the ''gaff''. Because of the size and shap ...

, often ketch rigged though also simply a large

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

, that was powerful enough to carry them quickly to and from the fishing grounds and to tow large trawls. Renowned yacht aerodynamicist and sailor C. A. Marchaj commented on the type, "With little area of keel surface, these boats lacked weatherliness as compared with the Quay Punt… Not without reason, fishermen of the north-east coast swore that the forefoot took them to windward." Brixham once had a fleet of 400 such vessels, whose distinctive red sails were coated with local

red ochre Ochre ( ; , ), or ocher in American English, is a natural clay earth pigment, a mixture of ferric oxide and varying amounts of clay and sand. It ranges in colour from yellow to deep orange or brown. It is also the name of the colours produced ...

for protection. Other fleets were at Lowestoft with 375 trawlers, 450 at Hull, 625 at Great Yarmouth and 840 at Grimsby, with smaller numbers at other places. Only five remain afloat. One of them, ''Provident (BM28)'', took part in the

Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant The Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant was a parade on 3 June 2012 of 670 boats on the Tideway of the River Thames in London as part of the celebrations of the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Queen, Prince Philip and other members of th ...

.Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant, ''List of vessels taking part'' In 2020 just two existing Brixham Trawlers are based in Brixham. Both built by J W & A Uphams. ''Pilgrim'' (1895) and ''Vigilance'' (1928). in 2022, ''Vigilance'' received a grant of £2,000 towards her renovation from the Royal Warrant Holders Association charity fund as part of the Queen's Platinum Jublilee awards.

Rescue

On 1 January 1915 the crew of ''Provident BM291'' rescued 71 sailors from , torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the English Channel during the night in a gale.

Rescue

References

External links