Trawler: A Journey Through the North Atlantic
By Redmond O'Hanlon
For most of us, I suspect, a stormy crossing to
Scrabster as so dramatically illustrated recently by those photographs
of the Hamnavoe, provides enough excitement to last a lifetime.
So, if someone phoned you up and invited you to
take a trip to the North Atlantic in a deep-sea fishing trawler with a
Force 12 gale promised, I can imagine what form the response would take.
Not Redmond O’Hanlon. He is described in
the loose cover of his latest book Trawler, as “an explorer in the
nineteenth-century mould”. This was an experience he had been waiting
for and he immediately left his comfortable home in the south to join
the Norlantean, a vessel well-known in Orkney, and previously named the
Dorothy Gray. Unsurprisingly, his stomach takes some time to adjust and
Mr O’Hanlon does not spare us the details.
Fortunately, he recovered sufficiently to describe
fish brought up from the depths, with nets descending for a kilometre
or more – the hagfish, the oldest fish in the sea and unchanged in
510 million years, the snotfish, roughhead grenadier, the jelly cat and
a ‘sea bat’ among them.
An arrangement had been made with Luke Bullough
of the Marine Laboratory in Aberdeen for the author to accompany him and
to assist with his research work on board and it was from Luke that Mr
O’Hanlon learned about the remarkable sea creatures they were catching
in these wild waters. The trawler, skippered by the owner Jason Schofield,
sets out from Stromness for the North Atlantic where the author tries
his hand at various tasks, despite mountainous seas and the effects of
lack of sleep.
For the crew, apart from having a passenger, it
was an otherwise normal winter fishing trip.
Fishermen will already be familiar with the activities
involved in finding, processing and storing the catch, but particularly
for the general reader, the wealth of detailed information about the machinery,
electronics and technicalities of how it is all done, makes for an uneven
read.
This very personal account of a hair-raising trip
will appeal to the many Redmond O’Hanlon enthusiasts.
For everyone, however, it gives an opportunity
to experience the perils of fishing in winter from the safety of an armchair.
It will naturally be of interest to many Orcadians
who will recognise the local references and will enjoy reading about how
crew members Robbie Stanger, Dougie Twatt, who was brought up on Eday,
Robbie Mowat, Allan Besant, first mate Bryan Robertson and of course the
skipper Jason, cope with savage sea conditions and interact with their
passenger.
The book will also serve as a memorial to the
Norlantean which, as reported recently in The Orcadian, has been
sold, to be replaced by the more modern Norlantean II.
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