Port St Mary, From Harbour 1901

Photo ref: 47236

More about this scene

This photograph shows a de-rigged Manx nobby at Port St Mary. Nobbies and nickies had the same basic hull shape, but were rigged differently, and the nickey was probably the better sailor of the two. During the second half of the 19th century it became common practice for boats to go into south-east Irish waters and fish for mackerel from March to June, to return to Man for the herring season, and then from October to follow the herring into Scottish waters. The fleet was at its height in the early 1870s with over 400 craft of varying types on the register. But the 1880s and 1890s brought with them a period of decline. In 1881 the Peel herring fleet consisted of 309 boats employing 2163 men and boys; the annual catch was worth around £11,000. By 1891 the local fleet was down to 174 boats employing 860 men and boys and landing an annual catch valued at just under £3000. By the mid 1890s, the Port St Mary fleet had shrunk to just 56 boats employing 346 men and boys; it too was landing a catch worth less than £3000 a year.