This book contains everything a wreck researcher needs. Nothing is left out.
The details are superb and at times accounts of sinkings are comic. The amount of work that has gone into this set of books is massive and is well laid out and very easy to follow.
It contains quotes from press, coastguard and locals.
A complete set would be a great investment.
The authors, Bridget Larn & Richard Larn have created a superb collection of books that will be very useful to many researchers.
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‘Sputnik trawler’ is a nickname given to two classes of series-built side trawlers. In the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s, these new and revolutionary boats were intended to replace ageing steam trawlers. The little workhorses had to combat the inevitable prejudice against something ground-breaking and also the torrid economic state of the trawling industry in the 1960s. Inevitably, there were casualties. However, removed from their intended role as mini-side trawlers based at the main trawling ports, the sputniks began to turn in some fine performances for skippers belonging to the inshore ports. Sputniks became successful seine netters, pelagic trawlers and scallop dredgers, their performance often enhanced in later years by extensive rebuilding, which left fifteen-year-old vessels looking like brand new boats. Against the odds of the 1960s trawling depression, some of the sputniks even did well as side trawlers and spawned the larger ‘Spinningdale’ trawlers. The Spinningdales proved an exceptional success as side trawlers and their design was every bit as capable of being adapted to other forms of fishing as the sputniks. Some of the Spinningdales were built as outstandingly successful seiner/trawlers for inshore fishing, where they were later joined by many sister vessels following the demise of the trawling industry. This book is a memorial to the sputniks and Spinningdales, with brief histories and photographs, and some fine fishermen’s anecdotes about the multitude of things these boats did during some of the best years the fishing industry will ever know.
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Saving lives from the waters around the coasts of Britain and all Ireland doesn’t get any less hazardous. For more than 175 years rescuing sailors from shipwrecks or holidaymakers from small boats has been in the hands of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), which remains a wholly voluntary-funded, non-Government organisation.
No matter how sophisticated ships have become storms are as bad as ever and ships, it seems, just as likely to get into difficulties, and the lives of crews are still at risk. Cameron’s account puts the story into a political and social perspective, and thrills with the stirring and often poignant narrative of the rescues themselves.
Ian Cameron was born in 1924 and educated at Oxford University. In WWII he was a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm, and saw service on Atlantic and Russian convoys. A full-time writer since 1956, his books have been translated into fourteen languages.
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For over 180 years images of strong, selfless males have populated the reports and literature of the lifeboat service. What has not been so well documented or recognised are the roles that, right from the very beginning, women have played in working to save lives at sea.
The stereotypical image is of women waiting in the lifeboat house for their men to return – brewing tea and giving encouragement and solace to each other. Look more deeply and it becomes clear that women have always been at the heart of the RNLI RNLI operation, undertaking a wide range of tasks which draw upon their distinctive skills and talents. From Victorian times right through to the twenty-first century, women have always been ‘strong to save’. The RNLI is alive with outstanding women working alongside equally outstanding men, ensuring that as many people as possible who find themselves in trouble, either on or by the sea, live rather than drown.
In Hidden Depths: Women of the RNLI, we begin to understand what magnificent feats of strength and teamwork these courageous and dedicated women have performed and still do. Rain speared down from black skies, a howling freezing gale tore at the roots of the fishermen’s cottages by the shoreline, a boiling sea was thundering ashore with huge combers breaking over the rocks in a fury of spume. Out there tossing and corkscrewing among the huge waves lay the entire fishing fleet of Newbiggin, among them almost the entire lifeboat crew. Today was to be the day the women of Newbiggin, the fishermen’s wives, saved their men folk.
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Telling the story of the once-ubiquitous Lancashire Nobby, a handsome sailing trawler that was once found in every harbour from West Wales to the West Coast of Scotland. This inshore boat worked as a shrimper in Morecambe bay working from the fishing ports of Barrow, Morcambe, Fleetwood and Heysham. It was also worked on the Lancashire coast and Liverpool bay, operating from Lytham St Annes, Southport and the port of Liverpool. The Nobby also worked from Rhyl and Colwyn Bay on the North Wales coast, through the Menai Strait and down into Cardigan Bay, operating as far South as Cardigan and Fishguard.
Nick Miller has studied the history of the Nobby for the last decade and tells the story in an accessible way. He lives in Barrow in Furness.
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Covering the whole of the UK, from Northern Scotland to the South Coast.
The loss of many ships and men is detailed in Trawler Disasters. Fishing is Britain’s deadliest industry – and many thousands have died in the pursuit of cod, herring, haddock, mackerel and a host of other fish so that we can feast on them.
Perhaps the most famous of recent disasters was the loss of the Gaul, a Hull-based trawler, which disappeared in the Arctic in February 1974. Its story has become one of conspiracy theory, espionage and cover-up and it wasn’t until the wreck was found and investigated that many of these theories were laid to rest.
Patricia O’Driscoll and John Nicklin tell the story of the tragic losses of a multitude of ships which were lost in the period from the end of the War until the Cod War, a time when Britain’s bountiful seas were being opened to foreign competition after the nation joined the EEC. Fishing once employed over half a million people in the UK and its recent history is one of decline.
It is still a story of tragedy as men still die and boats are still lost to the elements. Each tragedy hits a port hard, with everyone feeling the loss of one of their own. From the East Coast to the West, from Northern Scotland to Southern England, no part of Britain’s coast has been immune to the loss of a fishing boat and its crew.
This book is available on to buy on Amazon.
Hi everyone,
I am currently working on a new programme for BBC3 and am looking for a female skipper to take part.
We want to send a man out with you to see what a hard day’s work is all about and teach him how to respect a woman – he thinks a woman’s place is in the home!
Please get in touch if you’re interested as soon as possible.
You can contact me on 020 7449 3223 or katy.fox@renegadepictures.co.uk
Many thanks
Katy Fox
This is just the introduction to a two plus hours dvd about the heritage and beauty of Morecambe Bay in the North West of England where I live, just south of the stunning Lake District. It has taken me two years to research, script, film in HD, edit and narrate. I use lots of priceless historical footage from individual donors and film archives, rare Victorian postcards and photography, plus stunning aerial photography of the bay area. Plus, I was given a personal filmed tour around one of the finest Elizabethan houses in the North West, and its oldest topiary gardens in the UK, by the owners Hal and Susie Bagot.
It will be available shortly, in time for Xmas and Part 2 , will be available from Easter and will cover from Grange over Sands, along the “Lancashire Coast North of the Sands”, through Ulverston, Barrow and to Walney Island.
It is part of a trilogy of “Our Heritage” videos that I have produced and copies and further details are available from chris@eventspecialists.co.uk
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