A VANISHED FLEET

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1935, Page 11

A VANISHED FLEET

RAMSGATE'S FISHERMEN'

Jaii'.lV'.ijQir.'tS ij

The post-war history -of -tfttr-Ramsgate fishing industry makes tragic reading. In 1914 the fishing fleet included 143 ■sailing smacks, Today,,l states <the "Daily Mail," there is none* s , Of the pre-war fleet, 41t*vessels were destroyed by German submarines, and the majority of the remainder were sold to owners at other ports.'At the end of the-, wary only iwelve smacks were left and-> these ,* have gradually disappeared.' > -• Today thete-are. twelve > steam-trawl ers registered a\ the port, but eight of them operate for, the greater ,part of the year from Milford Haven, w Fourteen fishermen lost jtbeh? lives when their vessels'were,sunk while engaged in attemptnig~to securer&iQd for the nation during "the~Svax,f * Though a record of the -CU vessels lost was filed by the authorities, "with a view to such action as "the Government may think fit to take -at the. conclusion of hostilities," no -compensation has ever.been paid. ts-.~<f In August, 1914, the Kamsgat^pmaci; • Owners' Mutual Insurance Society, possessed a balance of £3600. -Within a few weeks of the" outbreak of war. tho balance had vanished, and^by the'end of the summer the fund was £12,000 in arrears. ' J1 ' When peace was" declare*- it wap computed ,that £40,000^:woutd Ji&ve beeh required to rejmbufse tfie smack owners for their losses and to re-estab-lish the society. % , *r ' . One of the few rettjaintn^ steam trawlers left at Ramsgate is 'the-Para-mount, which was attached 5 Jo the armed drifter squadron curing the war and helped, in conjunction wlth^two other drifters, to^sink the TJ4B, Vjsiibmarine engaged in mine^laynig, tin,liie Goodwin Sands on November; 24,1917. The drifter squadron destroyed more than a thousand mines'during the"war and lost five vessel? from Ta/t6tai,o£ thirty. , ", The few fishermen there, todayrflnd it hard to make a living. Xast month the fish landed at Ramsgate" weighed 825cwf, valued at £1116, domparedwith 1672cwt, valued, at £2010. only a"year ago. ' *, 4 "People cannot -afford the <-pnces charged for fish in the .shops," "sajd a trawler owner. "Yet the price the Ash fetches at the^market often does not pay for the cost of the voyage.**