Sampans in China, hand-colored lantern slide from collection of a Capt. Brown, given to Joanna Colcord of Searsport. We are not sure whether this is in the Hong Kong area or not.
This diagram shows a salmon weir, as typically built in Penobscot Bay around 1880. The salmon weir had multiple pounds (the area which corralled the fish), the final fish pound's floor being set so that it was almost dry at a very low tide. This made it easier to pick up the caught fish.
Salmon weirs were different in design from herring weirs, as they had multiple pounds.
This image is from G. Brown Goode's The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, 1884-1887, Section I, Plate 271. This book can be found online at NOAA
The crew is lined up to pull together to raise the sail. They might be singing a halyard shanty. The photograph was taken by the captain's daughter aboard the bark Carrie Winslow.
Sail loft in Thomaston. With thousands of sailing vessels to be outfitted in Penobscot Bay over the course of the nineteenth century, sailmaking was an important and popular trade. Note the tools used by a sailmaker in the end of the bench. Sail lofts needed much open floor space. One loft had a suspended wood stove in order to heat the space without losing continuous floor space.
Aboard the Rockland sardine carrier Jacob Pike, the first sardine carrier to get radar, installed shortly after she was built in 1949. She had been designed with a square pilot house to accomodate the then bulky radar units. Looking at the camera is Captain Sherman Lord who sailed her until 1970. To the right is Fran Cassidy who was the electronics installer. The background looks like Camden, Maine.
When the bark Carrie Winslow was in port, Ruth Montgomery went over to another vessel, the Canadian barkentine Luarca. Aboard was Capt. Starratt's son Ralph playing on his big model sailboat.
The early powered lobster boats were open launches or power dories. This image dates to around 1905 and looks to have a double-ended reverse stern popular in recreational launches of the time. This boat might do 7 to 10 miles an hour, a far cry from today's boats, but they could operate in a calm with much less work than rowing. The steadying sail helps keep the boat from rolling while hauling traps.
This portrait of John Smith comes from his map of New England published in 1617. John Smith had explored the New England coast in 1614, and set up a fishing station on Monhegan (and named the region New England). His Description of New England published in 1616. It described his success fishing and declared that fish were the region's most valuable product. The Pilgrims used fishing as the primary economic reason for their settlement, but were not very good at it.
