The Polperro Gaffer is a type of

fishing vessel A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to fishing, catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals (e.g. shrimps/prawns, krills, coleoids, etc.) in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial ...

used in

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. The Great Gale of 1891 destroyed the fishing fleets of many of the smaller Cornish villages. The old boats were generally clinker-planked and lug-rigged. The new boats built after the Gale with government intervention and support were to a new design, carvel planked and with the "modern"

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 sh ...

, boats we now know as typically

West Country The West Country is a loosely defined area within southwest England, usually taken to include the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and Bristol, with some considering it to extend to all or parts of Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and ...

with straight stem and transom sterns though the lines varied from port to port. Moonraker - Polperro Gaffer

Polperro fleet

The little fishing port of

Polperro Polperro (, meaning ''Pyra's cove'') is a large village, civil parish, and fishing harbour within the Polperro Heritage Coastline in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Its population is around 1,554. Polperro, through which runs the Riv ...

, 5 miles west of

Looe Looe (; , ) is a coastal town and civil parish in south-east Cornwall, England, United Kingdom, with a population of 5,280 at the 2011 census. Looe is west of Plymouth and south of Liskeard, divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe () a ...

had a fleet of small sailing fishing boats known as Polperro Gaffers. Their principal catch was the

pilchard Sardine and pilchard are common names for various species of small, oily forage fish in the herring suborder Clupeoidei. The term "sardine" was first used in English during the early 15th century; a somewhat dubious etymology says it comes ...

but this was a late summer catch and the rest of the year they set long lines, and seine nets. Most were built in Looe, around 26' with a deep 6' draft, a gaff rig on a pole mast stepped on the keel and they dried out on legs in Polperro's drying harbour.

Similar vessels

The Plymouth Hooker was very similar and the only surviving sailing fishing boats still working, the Falmouth Oyster Boats are almost the same in hull design.

Design

The Polperro Gaffer and the Plymouth Hooker were essentially open boats with a fore deck back to the mast, a small aft deck and narrow side decks or waterways. The "cock-pit" was divided into the fish hold where the catch was carried and the net hold where the long seine nets were carried with a wooden roller athwartships to feed the net in and out. It was not uncommon for the boats to have a couple of berths in the fore peak cabin.

Sails

The rig was deliberately low as it had to be handled by a small crew in all weathers and they would lie to the nets with mainsail set. However the sail area could be extended by setting a large topsail on a yard making these boats remarkably fast in races on high days and holidays.

Moonraker

These boats have excellent sea-keeping capability as witnessed by Dr Peter Pye who with his wife sailed his Polperro Gaffer ''Moonraker'' round the world in the 1940s.

References

{{Portal, Cornwall
A Brief history of the Polperro Gaffer
Economy of Cornwall Fishing vessels of the United Kingdom