The Bosun's Watch

Pictures and text courtesy of Mr. Roy Breach.

Death of Mr J.V.Breach.

Lowestoft’s Biggest Boat Owner.

Lowestoft’s largest boat owner, Mr J.V.Breach, who was well known at all the fishing ports around the coasts of the British Isles as at his home port died yesterday at 57 Kirkley Cliff, where he had made his home since his illness.
His whole interest was centred in the boat owning business in which he succeeded his father and which under his control reached a remarkable stage of development, in spite of the ups and downs with which the industry was faced from time to time.
He was Managing Director of Jack Breach Ltd, a Director of the local Fishing boat insurance clubs, and a member of the committee of the local Fisherman’s Widows & Orphans Fund.
Mr Breach lived for many years at Hastings House, Whapload Road, Lowestoft and after the outbreak of war went to Fleetwood to supervise the working of those of his boats which had not been taken for Admiralty service.
Last July he came home, and after an operation in Norwich in August remained in a nursing home until October. He never recovered sufficiently enough to return to Fleetwood.

An extract from the E.D.P. of 6.1.1944.

JACK BREACH

“Though virtually in the prime of life (he was 56) the late
Mr.John Breach had been one of the leading figures on the catching side of the herring industry for the last 25 years. This position was his because of the large number of drifters owned by companies of which he was Managing Director – at one time amounting to something like one-eighth of the Lowestoft fleet – and also because of his great practical knowledge, business enterprise, and organising ability.
He was the youngest member of the third generation of his family to be Lowestoft boat-owners. His Grandfather came to the East Coast from Hastings and built up a considerable business with sailing drifters. This was developed and enlarged by his father, who died during he last war, leaving his boat-owning interests to his son John

It was a time of high hopes and when the war was over businesses were expanded and new companies were formed by the dozen. The boom period was unhappily very brief and the Breach companies, being larger than most, suffered proportionally in the bad years. They kept the flag flying, however, and Breach boats right down to the present war were to be seen in the proper season at practically every herring port in the British Isles. And Mr John Breach too, was a familiar figure in most of these ports, which he visited from time to time, keeping a careful manager’s eye on his boats. Thus he acquired an experience of the conditions and practice of herring fishing which was unrivalled in the trade. He was almost as well known in the Scottish ports as in Lowestoft and Yarmouth. The English Herring Catchers Association, of which he was a prominent member, can ill afford to lose a man of his quality”.

Extract from Lowestoft Journal of 7.1.1944.

DEATH OF MR.JOHN BREACH, Jnr.

One of the youngest “admirals” of the Lowestoft drifter fleet and a member of one of the oldest firms of fishing-boat owners, Mr. John Breach, jnr., died at the Lowestoft and North Suffolk Hospital on Tuesday night.
Only 27 years of age, he assisted his father, Mr.JohnV.Breach, who is at
present seriously ill with pneumonia in a Lowestoft nursing home, in controlling one of the largest fleets of steam drifters operating from this
port.
His attractive personality made him greatly liked and respected not only in Lowestoft but at herring ports all over the British Isles.
The announcement of his death was a blow to the local trade and all flags on the fish market and in the vicinity were lowered to half mast as a token of respect.
Drifters fishing from the port went out with their flags at half-mast and those remaining in port also struck theirs.
Mr. Breach was unmarried. He was educated at Framlingham College.

John Alfred was by all accounts one of those individuals who possessed the qualities and character which made his friendship attractive to others.

The extract above is taken from the local Lowestoft newspaper

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Material courtesy of Bob Wilson

Mystery of the Lost Trawler – The Clara Bella FD138, 1914

The CLARA BELLA belonged to the New Dock Steam Fishing Company LTD and was three years old when she left Fleetwood on the 26th of January 1914 for her ill-fated trip. This was the first time this vessel had gone to Iceland and crew members included Robert Gawne, Thomas Newby, Wliiliam Braham, James Patterson, Patrick Gregan jnr, James Maker or Maher, Oliver Cranwell or Crosswell, J. Blackwood, William Stone, Archibald Mclean, Richard Tomlinson, (son of the New Docks Managing Director), Martin Burnett and Harry kluver. James Patterson (spare hand) was my grandfather. He was 25 yrs of age.

The last sightings of the CLARA BELLA were by the Grimsby trawlers (INA WILLIAM, the SWEEPER, and the CHALCEDONY). The INA WILLIAM put in for shelter in an Onunderfjord off the west coast of Iceland on February the 10th 1914. There were many trawlers sheltering there due to the extreme weather conditions at the time and most of the vessels were encased in ice. The Skipper, Henry Steel, recalls seeing a Fleetwood vessel anchored near the entrance of the Fjord. He remembered it because at the time, he had thought it was a bit of a novelty to see a Fleetwood trawler at the Icelandic fishing grounds. Skipper Steel went on to say that two hours later there were slight breaks in the snow storms and that is when he noticed that the Fleetwood trawler had disappeared. He concluded that they had possibly ‘Slipped out to try for fish’.

He told the Board of Trade enquiry, ‘The weather thickened again almost immediately and continued with heavy easterly gales and continuous snow storms for the next ten days’. James Westerby, Skipper of the Grimsby trawler SWEEPER, said he saw the Fleetwood trawler in early February off Csar Bay, five or six miles South-West of Rykgaves on the South-West coast of Iceland. Why the CLARA BELLA had left was not known, but no trace of her had been found since, nor had any wreckage been found. The presumption was that either she had gone down in the blizzard or she might have struck a rock or floating ice.

Board of Trade Enquiry

The Secretary of the New Dock Steam Fishing Company – Joseph Allen Taylor, said he was satisfied that the vessel sighted by the Grimsby trawler SWEEPER must have been the CLARA BELLA. The conclusion he came to was that the skipper of the CLARA BELLA tried to resume his fishing during an interval in the rough weather and had probably struck a rock or some floating ice during the blizzard which had continued for sometime after he left.

In another write up of the Fleetwood Chronicle dated March 24th 1914, the President of Hull Fishing Vessel Owners Association states, ‘that the trawler CHALCEDONY saw a Fleetwood trawler in Fara Bay on Sunday, March 1st. Later the skipper of the steam trawler, SWEEPER, which arrived in Grimsby on the 9th of March, reported having seen a Fleetwood trawler. And his description of the vessel he saw corresponds with that of the CLARA BELLA seen on Saturday the 28th of February. If the CLARA BELLA was sighted on March 1st she would have been at sea for thirty four days at that point.

The CLARA BELLA came to Fleetwood brand new. She was built in 1911 so was only three years old when she went missing. She was built at Middlesborough at the cost of £7881 and was insured for £7000. Her gross tonnage was about 299, and her speed ten knots. The CLARA BELLA was of standard design. The only difference from other trawlers being that she had an extra fish room aft and an extra bulk head forward. Her bunkers would take from 165 to 170 tons of coal and her ice capacity was about 35 tons. Her capacity for fish would be about 100 tons maximum. Dead weight calculated on freeboard would be about 279 tons.

The Crew

Bosun – Herbert or Robert Henry Gawne – twenty years of age, resided in Addison Road, Fleetwood. He left a wife and one child ages four months old.
Mate – Thomas Newby – thirty four years of age, resided at 53 Carr Road, Fleetwood. He left a wife and one child aged seven years.
Deck Hand – William Braham – nineteen years old, single. He lived in Milton Street, Fleetwood.
Spare Hand – James Patterson- twenty five years, resided 55 Mount Street, Fleetwood. He left a wife and two children aged two years and one ten months.
Spare Hand – Patrick Gregan jnr – twenty years of age – single. Resided at Preston Street, Fleetwood.
Fireman – James Maher (or Maker) – age and address unknown.
Second Engineer – Oliver Cranwell (or Crosswell) single, a native of Melbourne Australia, lodging in Adelaide Street, Fleetwood.
Spare Hand – J. Blackwood – age and address unknown.
Fireman – William Stone – twenty nine years, single, resided at 5 Garfield Street, (off Victoria Street) Fleetwood.
Cook – Archibald Mclean – sixty six years, widower, and has a daughter in the Post Office at Birkenhead. He is a native of Glasgow and resided at the Imperial Cafe Fleetwood.
Deckhand – Richard Tomlinson – seventeen, single, the son of Captain Ernest Tomlinson, the Managing Director of the New Dock Trawling Company – resided Poulton Road, Fleetwood.
Chief Engineer – Martin Burnett, age and address unknown, from Kintore Aberdeen.
Skipper – Harry Kluver – married man. This was his first sailing out of Fleetwood.

A Double Tragedy-The Doris FD141

The trawler, DORIS, was lost with all hands in January 1914 off the Western Hebrides. The crew members were:

Skipper – William Wright.
Mate – John Talbot
Bosun – Matthew Wood
Chief Engineer – John Stephenson
Second Engineer – William Croft
Trimmer – Levi Leake
Trimmer – Arthur Stephenson
Deckhand – Robert William Chiffins
Deckhand – William Jones
Cook – George/William Nicholson

There was only one body found and that was of the cook, William or George Nicholson.

My Grandfather, James Patterson, was the Spare Hand on the CLARA BELLA. The Fleetwood Chronicle article of the time stated ‘a rather strange coincidence in connection with James Patterson, is that he is stated to have signed articles to have sailed with the ill-fated DORIS, but at the last minute, he changed his mind and went in the CLARA BELLA. The trawler DORIS floundered off the coast of Skye around January 22nd 1914 with all crew lost. My grandfather’s fate was sealed.
On 25th of March 1913, after the loss of the BELOVAR and NEW CROWN a disaster fund was set up to help the bereaved families – it paid out about £200 in twelve months. . After the loss of the CLARA BELLA and the DORIS an appeal was launched by the fund ‘Urgent Help Needed’.
After researching the loss of the CLARA BELLA I can only conclude that there were a lot of contradictions in the various articles published in the Fleetwood Chronicle 1914.

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An selection of clippings from a 1939 edition of Picture Post. showing a world that we will never see again
Pictures courtesy of Maureen Blair

Can anyone identify the Fleetwood trawler or the people in these pictures?

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By Eric Haworth

I spent most of my school summer holidays in Fleetwood and had been intrigued by the trawlers as they left or returned on the high tide. As many as twenty or thirty trawlers would pass the families lined up on the prom waving goodbye to their dads for weeks on end. Each trawler would sound the fog horn in its own way so even at night they would be recognised by the families left behind.

The Taxi came to my Granddad’s shop in North Church Street at four o’clock in the morning. We swept past the police at the dock gates on a cold dark rainy night and drove straight up to the trawler Red Rose that was to be my home for the next three weeks.

The quayside was frantic, ice and provisions were being loaded, men were leaping on and off the ship. The whole crew it seemed to me, were all drunk, arrived cursing and swearing as they fell out of taxis in a last minute dash before we sailed. If they were lucky they would have had two days ashore with their families (or in the pubs) before setting off on another trip.

The Red Rose was a new ship built in Aberdeen in 1955 and was one of the last oil fired trawlers built to fish the Icelandic and North Russian fishing grounds out of Fleetwood. In those days it was revolutionary in providing decent aft crew quarters, with showers and flush toilets. (It was later relocated at Hull, renamed Lord Howe and finally scrapped in 1968.)
We sailed on the early morning tide to Heysham where we filled up with fuel oil. The heavy smell of the oil gave me the first hint of seasickness which was to plague me for the next week. Being sick for days on end and not eating meant that my stomach was throwing up bile and my muscles were aching with all the retching. These first few days were a nightmare not helped by the whole crew recovering with foul hangovers only to start boozing again when the `bond store` was opened.

As the crew sobered up, and we approached Iceland the fishing gear was made ready. It started to dawn on me how hard and dangerous the work was as the net was manually hauled over the side and the bobbins and trawl doors were winched into the sea (In the 1950′s all the trawlers had side nets).
The skipper, Captain McKernan, up on the bridge in a high chair lashed to the side rail, leaned out of the window and controlled every movement. He really was the boss, and was acknowledged as one of the most successful trawler captains in Fleetwood.
The net was trawled night and day for the next two weeks, weather permitting until the holds were full of fish. The crew worked 16 hours at a time in the worst conditions imaginable often soaked and covered in fish blood as they gutted the fish on the open deck .

After helping to gut the fish my jeans were soaked in blood and slime of the fish and stayed that way for the rest of the trip. I must have smelled delightful!
A more pleasant but equally difficult job was to chop the ice down in the fish holds and cover layer after layer of fish as they were placed in the aluminium storage racks.

The worst was to come in the form of a Force 9 gale when all we could do was to stow all the gear and steam slowly into the storm. The ship literally sailed up a wave then down into the trough repeatedly for two days. It was sheer terror to a young teenager. The bow would dive into an oncoming wave which would wash onto the bridge blacking out the windows, in what seemed ages they gradually turned dark then light green and then cleared as the wave moved down the ship.

As the stern and propeller came out of the sea, the engines raced to maximum revs and the ship shuddered violently. The ship was almost like a submarine with all doors locked and hatches closed. The pitching motion was so violent that the only way to sleep in my bunk was to tie myself in. Another boy on the same trip didn’t, and ended up smashed against the cabin wall as he was thrown out of his bunk.

At the other extreme, we steamed through flat calm in a dense fog among a least twenty other trawlers all determined to carry on fishing. We were the only ship with radar but that packed in and like all the others had a lookout at the bow and regularly sounded the foghorn. It gave a whole new meaning to fishing blind.
The weather changed again as we steamed back from Iceland on a beautiful summer evening the sea was like a mill pond and myself and several of the deckies were leaning back against superstructure enjoying a bit of warm sunshine.

Literally out of the blue we were reminded how fickle and unpredictable the sea can be. A rogue wave quietly bore down on us and although we spotted it at the last minute all we could do was grab the hand rail and hold tight whilst it swept over the trawler. We rolled through what seemed like 90 degrees and were
completely engulfed by seawater which rushed through the open doors and flooded the crews quarters. It also deluged down the galley skylight where the cook luckily escaped scalding as the water hit the stove.

Two minutes later we steamed on through flat calm as though nothing had happened, but then had to bail out and dry everything. Then as now, deep sea fishing was dangerous and out of our twenty-one crew,
three died at sea within a few years. Tragically William Cooper the radio operator on the Red Rose later became the radio operator on the Red Falcon and died when she went down in 1959. I spent a lot of time with Bill since I was interested in becoming a radio operator. His other job on the Red Rose was boiling cod livers in the bow . This was a peculiar feature on the Red Rose in that cod liver boilers were usually located astern.

In spite of the weather, at the end of two weeks non-stop fishing we had the hold full of mainly cod and haddock all neatly stowed in ice. The latest i.e. freshest was carefully laid out in trays head to tail to get the highest price at the quayside auction. Everyone had a vested interest since the wages depended on the value of the catch. After a good catch, the crew with children would shower them with presents
and sweets, and the pubs which lined Dock Street did a roaring trade.

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