Extracts from The Seiners by Cyril Toms

The seine boat - called a Lerret was designed and built exclusively for work on the Chesil Beach, what we would call a "double ender" that is, it had a bow at each end. This allowed it to cope with the seas when going or coming ashore.

They were sixteen to seventeen feet in length, with a beam of five to six feet, and were fairly flat bottomed to allow them to be hauled up the beach. There were three main seats or ‘thwarts’ going across the boat, the seat aft could not be used by the rower as this area was taken up by the seine. The men rowing would sit on the midship and forward seat, giving four oarsmen in all, plus the skipper who would throw the seine.

The net was loaded with stones on one side, corks on the other. These stones were collected from the Portland end of the beach, about ten inches in length and of an oblong shape. They had to be heavy enough to take the lower edge of the seine to the bottom, and of course the corks, fastened to the top rope, kept the net upright. The stones would have a hole drilled through them and were attached to the bottom rope by a small chain.

So any stone found along the length of the Chesil Beach and of about this size, became known locally by the fishermen as a ‘seine stone’. As mentioned before these stones were laid in the boat in a special way, so as not to hinder the net going over the side. When it came to the stones’ turn to go over, they would be thrown well away from the boat so as not to foul the net. All this was going on while the boat was being rowed out and around in a half circle. Hence the saying ‘to throw the seine’.

Before this could happen the boat had to be launched. The crew would take up their positions behind each oar, which were some ten to twelve feet in length. They were balanced by a large rounded piece of oak which was fastened to the loom of the oar. This piece of oak was known as the ‘copse’ and had a hole drilled through it which went down over the ‘thole-pin’. The pin kept the oars balanced and in place ready for rowing.

The rest of the crew would be stood around the stern of the boat waiting for the order to push! As the right wave presented itself the skipper, or thrower of the seine, would shout "now" and the boat would be pushed into the water. The skipper would then jump aboard giving the men the order to pull on the oars. The crew would take the weight of the water on the blades of their oars, and they would be up and over the first breakers, and away to ‘Shoot the Seine’.

Having left the lawn end (land end) of the rope ashore in the hands of the beach crew - who would be walking with the tide - and with the seine having been shot, the ship-end rope was brought ashore by the boat crew, one man or boy would be left on board to ‘keep boat’. This man or boy would row out around the seine to check that it was laying right in the water, and that everything was okay!

The men, now having landed would be pulling on the ‘ship-end’ and matching the pull of the crew on the ‘lawn-end’ so that both ends of the seine came ashore together. With the ropes ashore and the sweeps beginning to show, the corks could now be seen clearly coming out of the water. It was now time to go back up along the beach and collect up the ropes so that they could be made ready for use again.

Meanwhile the net is nearly ashore and even though you had brought this net ashore hundreds of times before, you still get excited not knowing what might or might not be there. Only to find all you have caught is one dozen mackerel, two jelly fish, a large stone and a lot of seaweed!

There were times of course, when you would have caught a weight of five hundred stones or more, of the finest mackerel. A catch of this size meant a lot more work beaching the fish, and the skipper would shout ‘fetch the spee-eck’.

The spee-eck (spike?) was a wooden post about five feet in length, sharpened at one end and about three inches around, was usually carried in the bottom of the boat, and if it appeared to be a large catch the spee-eck would be taken out and driven into the beach. A rope would be passed around it and taken down to the bunt end holding the mackerel. The rope was then made fast to prevent the net sliding back into the sea. Once driven in a crew member would just hold the top of the spee-eck to stop it pulling out under the load. With everything now secure and the hose end cut, the dipping out of the mackerel could start.

The ‘dip net’ consisted of a long handle with a metal ring at one end, about eighteen inches across and covered in a small mesh net. The mackerel would be dipped out and put into pots (wicker baskets), each one holding about four stone. With one man on each handle of the pot, they would rush up over the beach until clear of the water. Then a hollow would be dug out of the shingle, and the fish would be carefully tipped out. Later these fish would be loaded back into the pots again, and taken up over the beach to be put in boxes and weighed, approximately two stone to a box. They were then loaded onto the lorry and taken away to the fish markets where they would be auctioned.

Meanwhile with the fish ashore and safe upon the beach, the person keeping the boat would be brought ashore next to where the fish were landed. The person on board the boat would take up a light line, and at one end would be attached a block of wood. While still keeping the boat a safe distance from the shore, the man in the boat would throw the line ashore. This is where the bow at both ends came into its own. The beach crew would then pull on that ‘start rope’ and bring the boat through the surf and over the stones hauling the boat quickly clear of the water - a trickey manouvere if a swamping was to be avoided!

To assist the boat on its way up the beach the copse of the oars would be greased with melted down fat (lard) which was always kept in the boat. The oars would then be placed on the beach across the bow of the boat, and when pulled the boat would ride up onto the oar. A man would then run round to the stern of the boat, pick up the oar that had just been ridden on, and take it around to the bow. This was repeated until the boat was safely hauled onto the first flat of the steep beach. Then the rest of the fish would be carried until they were all boxed and weighed. This usually took between two to three hours, depending on how many crew had turned out.

By the end of August the fishing season is nearly over, the mackerel have moved to deeper water, and the sea is beginning to take on one of its ever changing moods.

The lerrets will have been hauled all the way up the beach onto the top flat, and over to the roadside where they will be secured with ropes and boxes of buried beach.

A hollow was made in the beach and the lerret would be moved into it. The beach would then be pushed back all around the hull, and the lerret would be lashed down to the buried boxes. The boat was then said to be ‘beached in’ for winter.