Port Isaac Lugger
Small luggers worked the north coast of Cornwall. Small lug-rigged beach boats worked from the three ‘ports’ – Portquin, Port Isaac and Port Gaverne – up to the Second World War. These worked crab pots in summer as well as hand-lining and long-lining. In autumn and winter they drift-netted for pilchards and herring. The boats were ups to 23ft in length and such a vessel could carry 8 drift nets for the herring.
Portquin had its own pilchard cellars and fleet of small luggers. The whole fleet was, it is said, lost in a storm overnight at some time towards the end of the nineteenth century (much earlier dates have also been suggested) and fishing immediately died although no evidence of this fact survives. Today it is a deserted village owned by the National Trust.
Port Isaac, on the other hand, had a pilchard fishery before the sixteenth century and a pier was built sometime around that time. In 1850 there were 49 fishing boats registered here, two boatbuilding yards, the last of which, run by Harry Hills, closed in the 1960s. A replica Port Isaac lugger Rebecca Kate was built 2001, though it has a slightly different rig and a steel centre plate.
Sources: 9, 18
If you would like to see the Author’s notes and sources, please download the PDF below.
If you would like to return to the list of boats, please click HERE