Hard down! Hard down!. Captain Jack Isbester
in overall length, were used by the old men and boys for inshore fishing for herring, whiting, haddock and shellfish.3 In 1869, when registration of open fishing boats was first required, there were 15 fourareens spread amongst the various Whiteness crofts, each with a crew of three or four men.4 The Whiteness boats were owned by the crofters themselves, unlike in some other parts of Shetland where the landlords owned them.5 However no fourareen was registered for John Isbester’s home at Haggersta. This supports the suggestion that his uncle, Laurence Anderson, used to go each summer with the Faroe smacks.
There would be plenty of opportunities for a local boy to find employment fishing in Shetland. In the 1860s herring fishing, like cod fishing, was often done from sixareens. John Isbester probably sailed with a sixareen from Lerwick. The sixareens were more suitable for cod fishing than for herring. For the former about six miles of line were used. This took up less space in the boat than did the six or eight nets6 required for herring. Consequently the cod-fishing gear left more room for the catch,7 a very important consideration. In the 1860s the herring fishermen fished up to about 15 miles from the coast8 and landed the catch for curing. The relevance of John Isbester’s experience of sailing in sixareens will come to mind when reading the account of the loss of the barque Centaur, 30 years later and the subsequent eight-day voyage by boat to the Hawaiian Islands.9
Figure 3.1 Sixareen at Unst Boat Haven, Shetland
The history of the sixareens, their construction, their use and the exploits of their crews are cherished in Shetland, with justified pride in the traditions, skill, ingenuity, courage and endurance with which they were used (Fig. 3.1). There is a Shetland name for every part and fitting of the boat, and the names hark back to their Norwegian roots. The sixareens were usually assembled in Shetland from timber imported from Norway or Scotland.10 When fishing, they were equipped for trips of up to three days. They were propelled by up to six oars with each man taking one oar, or by an almost square sail set on a yard on a mast stepped just forward of the centre of the boat. They were small – usually 9–11 metres in length overall – and every scrap of space was used. Sixareens were divided into seven working sections by six thwartship rowing benches with vertical gratings beneath them.11 The aftermost section was for the helmsman with his compass, steering with rudder and tiller when the boat was sailing. The next section could be divided with a broad shifting board, aligned fore and aft, and accommodated the catch of fish or, on the outward journey, part of the ballast – up to a ton of beach boulders – to be thrown overboard when fish were caught. Next came the section devoted to bailing. In heavy weather the boat would ship quantities of spray and quite often breaking seas, and 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