PORT OF SCARBOROUGH
The port is situated on the East Coast of England at the foot of Scarborough Castle Hill.
The harbour is owned by the Scarborough Borough Council and consists of three piers enclosing an outer and an inner basin. The outer basin is mainly used by pleasure boats and the inner basin by commercial fishing and cargo vessels.
The harbour is tidal and almost dries out at low water. It is prone to silting and for this reason the Council charters a small backhoe dredger to remove mud, sand and stones from the bottom.
From the commercial part of the harbour approximately 25 keelboats and about 30 small cobles and other open boats engage in fishing.
The keel boats mainly go trawling, which means dragging a large cone shaped net through the water and catching a variety of fish types, while the smaller boats fish with lines or trammel nets or set traps to catch crabs or lobsters especially during the summer time.
Line fishing is rapidly disappearing mainly due to the high cost of baiting the 600 hooks which each line may carry. A trammel net is a curtain of net in which the fish become enmeshed in small pockets.
The main fish types caught are cod, haddock, whiting and dog fish while bottom trawling produces skate, sole and Dover sole, plaice and turbot. Until the early 1970’s herring fishing was a major seasonal activity, but mainly due to over fishing is now restricted.
Crabs and lobster are trapped in net covered ‘pots’, which are baited with scraps of fish and placed on the seabed near to the rocks, which provide protection for the shellfish.
The main shellfish season is between March and September but some fishing takes place during the winter when the weather is settled. During the summer a small quantity of salmon is also netted as the fish migrate along the coast to the spawning rivers.
As each vessel comes into port the fish is landed at the fish market pier. Different varieties and size of fish are laid out in boxes each with the weight marked on it and each with ice added to keep the fish in good condition. The fish is sold by auction with buyers coming from all over the county to bid against one another. The buyers then despatch the fish by road to as far away as London. Nowadays the cargo trade is in decline with only an occasional cargo boat calling, usually with malting barley.
The outer harbour contains over 200 pleasure boats ranging from racing and cruising yachts, to a variety of small pleasure fishing boats and 25 speedboats.