White-Tipped Orange Masts: The Gloucester Dragger Fleet That Is No More - Softcover

Prybot, Peter K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1596292253 ISBN 13: 9781596292253

Publisher: The History Press, 2007

Synopsis

Netting shrimp in the icy waters off Cape Ann, hauling up lobster two hundred miles offshore, in the 1970s Gloucester’s eastern-rig side trawlers were at the top of a dying and dangerous industry.

In the tough competition for the daily catch, Gloucester’s dragger fleets were the best. They went out farther, stayed out longer, and risked all as the fishing grounds grew lean. Author Peter Prybot captures the glory days of the draggers through recollections and his own firsthand observations as a lifelong Gloucester fisherman. Terrible weather, good fishing, bad fishing, great days and greater danger-- these are true stories from the decks of the celebrated trawler fleet that is no more.

About this title

About the Author

Peter Prybot’s photojournalism of fisheries has flourished, including numerous magazine cover photos and articles. Today he writes an “Ebb & Flow” column for the local newspaper, the Gloucester Daily Times, and is the area correspondent for the popular monthly fishing trade journal Commercial Fisheries News, published in Stonington, Maine. He contributes photos to National Fisherman and the Associated Press. His camera equipment goes with him most of the time, including while out fishing and lobstering. His first book, Lobstering off Cape Ann has quickly become a coastal Massachusetts favorite.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

From Introduction:
When I was only 11 years old, during a family picnic along the Lanesville, MA seashore, I decided I wanted to become a fisherman. That calm August afternoon, a skiff lobsterman hand-hauled several wooden lobster traps right in front of us as we stood along the shoreline. "That's what I want to do for a living," said an inner voice.

That strong impression motivated me to pester my Polish-born father and New England-born mother to get me a boat and some traps. What could be simpler, and my dad could no longer use the "not being able to swim" excuse. The following spring he bought me a 12-foot wedge-shaped wooden skiff, a pair of oars, and a dozen rickety wooden lobster traps with lines and buoys for $45.

That summer this 12-year-old entrepreneur began lobstering out of Lane's Cove, an historic granite block harbor also known as "The Hole in the Wall." The Cove, located about a mile from my Washington Street Lanesville home, had dory and power-boat lobstermen - mostly Finns - but there were also the one-armed lobsterman Duke Terrada, Arthur Goudreau, old Herm Marchant, and George Morey, who also ran a fish trap in the summer for "old Englanders" (whiting), squid and mackerel.

I was an avid lobsterman, up at the crack of dawn, salt water already running deeply in my veins. My dad hoped I would "...get sick of that damned lobstering" and follow in his footsteps as a liturgical artist. But, in addition to teaching me something about business, that first summer left me with a tremendous sense of the ocean's freedom and a fascination of wondering what each trap had caught.

About this edition

• Publisher: The History Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1596292253
• ISBN 13: 9781596292253
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 252