Hard down! Hard down!. Captain Jack Isbester
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, but they did have an incentive to do their best. Individuals were required to keep a record of the fish they caught, which they did by cutting off and retaining the barbel – the whisker-like organ that hangs below the lower jaw of a cod – to provide the proof. They received a bonus payment, usually sixpence, for each score (20) of fish caught.24
When the fishing was really good it was a case of all hands on deck, working round the clock, perhaps catching 1,000 fish a day and only stopping when the shoal disappeared, the weather became foul or there was so much fish on deck that they had to stop fishing and process it.25
Processing the fish involved installing the flensing table on deck, then removing the head of each fish, gutting it, splitting it, removing its spine, washing and scrubbing it free of all blood and gut lining, salting it and stowing it in the hold. Junior hands like John Isbester were expected to do the beheading, gutting, washing and scrubbing, salting and stowing, but the splitting and removing of the spine was skilled work usually done by the master, mate, or trusted senior hand.
When the fishing was poor the cold wind seemed even keener, the icy spray more hostile and the slippery, pitching decks more treacherous. As Captain Thomson observed,26 ‘This was indeed an endurance test to make or break, yet many young Shetlanders started their sea career under these conditions.’
To sustain them, the crew were provided with ‘biscuit’ (actually bread) and with coffee which could be laced with brandy. They could also eat fish. The Shetland practice of eating cod livers, a natural source of vitamins A and D, was a healthy one which helped to prevent illness during long periods at sea. Any other food they had to provide for themselves.
There was one bonus to work on the Faroe smacks – the smuggling of duty free brandy and tobacco from Faroe, and there are reasons to believe that for much of the 19th century 80–90 per cent of the Shetland population was involved in the trade, as either smugglers or their customers. With the Shetland fishermen knowing every inch of the coastline and the Customs officers all coming from England or Scotland, it was common practice for the contraband to be landed at night in some remote spot before the smack made a public arrival in port on the following morning.27 On his first voyage John Isbester might not have had any money with which to buy contraband, but in the next three years he would have many further opportunities.
John Isbester paid off the Telegraph on 10 June 1867 and was at his mother’s home, Garths of Easthouse in Tingwall, when she died from tetanus on 4 July that year. We know nothing of her death except for the bald facts recorded in the death certificate.
John Isbester had a half-sister, Barbara Anderson, who like him was illegitimate. At the time of her mother’s death she was a few days short of her eighth birthday, and her future must have concerned John and members of his extended family. From census records it appears that his aunt Philophia (or Philadelphia) Sutherland, his mother’s eldest sister, took Barbara into her own family. The census of 1871 describes Barbara as a scholar (ie a schoolchild) and annuitant and gives her the surname Hunter, which hints that the previously unadmitted father had played a role in providing for her future. That John Isbester kept in contact with his sister through the years is evidenced by a postcard,28 couched in affectionate terms, from Barbara’s daughter Susan, writing in 1913. She writes ‘We were all so glad to see that uncle had arrived safe and well’, apparently referring to his final successful passage from Newcastle NSW to Callao, Peru.
With his own career at sea launched, his mother dead, his father incommunicado in New Zealand and his half-sister provided for, John Isbester had every reason to return to sea and he did so by joining the schooner Novice, another Faroe smack, on 9 August 1867 for her final trip of the season, ending on 30 September.
1 Zetland Directory & Guide Second Edition.1861.
2 Thomson, Captain J.P, OBE ExC. Captain John Isbester’s Career at Sea, p.2. Unpublished manuscript. (Isbester Collection).
3 Smith, Davie. Personal letters Nos.DS5, DS9 (Isbester Collection).
4 The Shetland Customs and Excise Fishing Boat Register for 1869, Shetland Archives, Lerwick.