it was the job of the bailer, equipped with a bailing shovel which could contain up to 9 litres of water, to get rid of the water before the next sea broke over the boat!
The next section, in the middle of the sixareen, was used for shooting and hauling the fishing lines when fishing for cod and ling, or the nets when fishing for herring. The mast was stepped through the thwart immediately forward of the mid-section. Forward of the mast was space for most of the ballast and for the fire kettle, the pot and the peat fuel. The fire kettle was a large earthenware jar containing burning peat, kept lit throughout the voyage, over which a pot of food or drink could be heated. The next section contained the sea chest, a heavy box, its lid covered with a tarpaulin, containing provisions and utensils.
Finally, in the bows were stowed two water breakers, or containers, and the sail when not in use.
The sailing of a sixareen in heavy weather has been described in several Shetland books12,13 with particular reference to the terrible storm of July 1881 in which ten sixareens and 58 men were lost. A survivor14 published a gripping account15 of how, when the wind struck from north by east with little warning, three miles of fishing line were cut and abandoned, the close-reefed square sail was set and the helmsman set the boat running south east through heavy-breaking seas for the trip of some 37 miles to sheltered waters or, if they got it wrong, to founder in the stormy seas or to wreck on the unforgiving rocky coastline. The tack of the sail had been set forward, effectively making it a fore and aft sail, and two men took the halyards. What is particularly fascinating about this account is that the boat’s speed was varied, to avoid the worst of the breaking crests and, when surfing, to keep on top of the wave, by the combined efforts of the three men who controlled the sail – the helmsman with the sheet and his two companions on the halyards. A version of this technique, called ‘pumping the sail’ by yachtsmen could be seen on television in use by the Finn class yachtsmen at the 2012 Olympics. Even in the later stages, as they reached more sheltered waters, the sixareen crew had, as the boat pitched forward over a roller, to ‘keep the sail low, and ease,’ to avoid the bow being forced below the surface. There is no suggestion that John Isbester experienced conditions quite like those described above but he may have done so, and in a season of fishing in the stormy Shetland waters he would undoubtedly have met periods of nasty weather and had the opportunity to improve his boat handling skills by observing his experienced companions.
Following the 1866 season of some four months which John Isbester spent at the herring fishing, he joined the smack Telegraph on 1 April 1867.16 Aged just 15, he joined as ordinary seaman (OS). She was single-masted – a long-boomer – with an enormous sail area for her size, having been built in Barking, Essex, to run fish from the Dogger Bank to the Billingsgate fish market.17 She was over 70 feet (22 metres) in length and her main boom extended 13 feet (4 metres) over the taffrail.
The 1860s and 70s were a prosperous time for the Shetland cod fisheries in which Telegraph, like other Faroe smacks, was employed, and John Isbester had probably signed an agreement earlier in the year which required him to be ready to join on 1 April for the first of three fishing trips of six weeks or thereabouts to Faroe, Iceland or Rockall. Scalloway, the west coast Shetland seaport near Whiteness, remained the main centre where smacks were cleared by Customs, took on crew and loaded provisions.18 John would have invested in the essential knee-high leather boots, the oilskin trousers and jacket, the personal fishing line and hooks plus meagre provisions, all bought from the owners’ store against an advance taken from his anticipated share in the profits of the voyage.19
For several days he and his dozen or so shipmates would have been employed in the hectic work of storing the ship, taking aboard perhaps 30 tons of salt for curing the catch, sacks or barrels of yeog (horse mussels) for bait, provisions and fresh water, several tons of coal for the stoves, fishing gear, fish handling gear and spare sails and cordage.20 John Isbester would have had a good idea of what to expect. About 80 Faroe smacks were in service at that time21 and hundreds of Shetland men and boys served aboard them. Family, friends and neighbours could recount their experiences, and he would have been in no doubt as to the challenges that could face him in a life that was reputed to sort the men from the boys. The cod fishing was very hard work, and the crews were predominantly young men in their teens, twenties and thirties.
When they put to sea their most likely destination would have been Faroe. Rockall was unpopular, as being an isolated rock it was more difficult to find and because no supplies of fresh water and bait were available there if needed. In addition, when fishing at Rockall, a smack had nowhere to run for shelter. By contrast, at Faroe and Iceland it was usually fairly easy to find shelter in the various fjords and bays if weather conditions became too severe to remain on the fishing grounds.22 Icelandic waters tended to be ice-infested until later in the year and were, therefore, most likely to be the destination for the final voyage of the season. The Faroe smacks relied entirely upon sail, and the voyage from Shetland to Faroe could take anything from two days to two weeks.
On his first voyage John Isbester would have had to become used to a four-on/four-off watchkeeping system during which he would be trimming sails, steering, keeping lookout, tending the galley stove and doing whatever other tasks were given to the most junior hands, while coping with the cold, the smells and the inevitable violent motions of the ship. All the crew slept in a single cabin, with two tiers of bunks and a central stove. When the fishing grounds were reached the crew changed to a three-watch system with, if fish were found, two watches always on duty and one watch off, so that each man was fishing for 16 hours a day. The only exception was on Sundays when no fishing was done, and the skippers took the opportunity to close with other smacks and get news of what success they had had with the fishing.
Captain Thomson23 wrote:
Upon arrival on the fishing banks which were found usually by dead reckoning and the hand lead, sails were balanced to suit the speed required. The fore sheet was hauled hard to windward, the main boom run off and the helm was put hard-down. In this condition the vessel backed and filled, keeping the station fairly well – raching it was called. The hands line the rails, shoot their lines and the vital operation begins, sometimes with little success but the crew toil on, balancing on the slippery deck to the roll and pitch of the vessel.
The cod would be swimming at some level between the surface and the sea bed (at depths up to 165 metres when off Faroe) and would be caught with weighted lines, each armed with two baited hooks. The on-duty crew, including the captain and mate, would be distributed along the weather side of the deck, where leeway would ensure that the ship did not drift over the lines, facing into the wind, each lowering his line into the sea and, when the cod were there, quickly pulling the line back up with one or often two cod hooked on, each weighing something like 14 kg. Once the cod had been brought on deck and unhooked the hooks had to be rebaited and the line with its 3 kg weight lowered back into the sea. If an icy, spume-laced wind was blowing, as it usually was, and the decks were slippery with water and fish, as they usually were, this work became all the more painful, arduous and exhausting. It is difficult to imagine the sheer effort required to haul the heavy weight of struggling fish from the depths time after time and hour after hour with aching and exhausted limbs and with hands chilled, lacerated and stung by salt. Crew members were liable to be fined if they failed to turn-to or if they were considered to be slacking,
