Learning on ScreenEcho Fishing
Series
- Series Name
- New Pictorial
Issue
Story
- Story No. within this Issue
- 4 / 5
- Researcher Comments
- Commentary: From Newlyn Harbour in Cornwall, the fishing vessel "Twilight" is soon to put out to sea in search of fish, and, along with the nets and other fishing gear, an echo sounder is brought aboard. Its purpose: to locate shoals of fish. Head-lands in Cornwall still bear trace of huts where look-outs once were posted to signal when shoals were nearing shore. Today science does the job for them. Beneath "Twilight"'s hull a small oscillator is fixed like a limpet. It transmits a sound-wave downwards and any fish-shoals that cross the wave send back an echo to another machine up on deck. But now its time to set sail and the crew cast off. Out of the harbour and towards the open sea. Despite the echo-sounder, there’s still plenty of work to be done as "Twilight" heads for fishing grounds fifteen miles south of Monts Bay. Skipper Paul Humphrys is at the wheel. He’s got forty five years of fishing experience and knows this stretch of water like the back of his hand. "Full Steam Ahead" is the order and "Twilight" responds, thrashing the water behind her as she forges towards her goal before night falls. On the journey out, the echo-sounder is kept switched on. When fish come between the oscillator and the sea-bed, a mark is registered on a moving chart. Careful calculations based upon the ship’s speed show how large the shoal is. There’s one now! It’s a pretty big one too by the look of it. The order’s given "Shoot the nets" and over the side they go. One and a half miles of nets reaching down to a depth of fifty fathoms. As night falls and the ship rolls gently in the swell, only the marker buoys tell of the fisherman’s trap. In the morning it takes nearly four hours to haul the nets aboard. It’s hard and tiring work, too. The nets are heavy with water and laden with pilchards. So don’t ask why they go to all this trouble to get fish when it’s so easy to buy them in tins! Before the echo-sounder came into use, many hours of hard labour were wasted. Now fishing crews know that where they cast their nets, there they will reap from the rich harvest of the sea.
- Keywords
- Ships and boats; Fisheries
- Footage sources
- Ours
- Credits:
-
- Commentator
- Eamonn Andrews
- Length of story (in feet)
- 185
-
Film clip
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Film Archive
- Name
- British Pathe Ltd
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- Web
- https://www.britishpathe.com/
- Phone
- 0207 665 8340
- Address
- 3.29 Canterbury Court
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SW9 6DE - Notes
- Pathe now also handles the Reuters Historical Collection, which includes the British Paramount, Empire British, Gaumont Graphic and Gaumont British newsreels.
- Series held
- View all series held by British Pathe Ltd
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