THE CAPE ISLAND BOAT

     The Cape Island fishing boat is the most popular fishing launch in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada, and in eastern New England, U.S.A., where it is called the Jonesport Fishing Boat. The date and place of origin of this fishing vessel type are uncertain but it was clearly copied from an early form of high-speed motorboat. It has a very long, fine entrance and an equally long and flat run, with the greatest beam of the loadwaterline well abaft midships. On the north coast of New Brunswick, this fishing boat has a canoe or cruiser stern and is very flat underneath. Elsewhere, it is square- sterned and the wide, flat transom is either plumb or rakes forward slightly at the top. The sternpost is well under the boat and is planked up, schooner-fashion, though the New England boats often have skegs, without much departure otherwise in the lines. In Nova Scotia the fishing boats have their forefoot cut away to allow them to run upon a steep shore, end on, and unload where no wharf exists and there is no surge on the beach. The basic lines of the Cape Island model are commonly between 35 and 45 ft. (10.7 to 13.7 m.) long, 10 to 12 ft. (3.05 to 3.66 m.) beam, and draw light 2J to 4 ft. (0.69 to 1.22 m.). Some heavily powered boats are reported to have speeds up to 17 to 18 knots per hour in smooth water.

     The fishing boats are light, the frames being of ash or oak, wide and thin in cross-section and very closely spaced. The planking is white pine or white cedar and is rarely more than \\ in. (32 mm.) thick before finishing. The keels are rectangular in cross-section and rabbeted. At the sternpost there is often weakness; the turn of the tuck becomes so quick that a frame cannot be bent sharply enough, so shaped chocks are set up on the keel and the frames let into their tops. The horn timber is often merely bolted on top of the wide, short sternpost. In some fishing boats, to strengthen the stern, there is a sort of A-frame laid flat on the frames, with its apex kneed to the transom. The heels of the arms run well forward of the sternpost, on the flat of the run outboard, and are fastened to each frame, with a cross-piece laid over the arms and drifted to them and to the top of the horn timber, directly over the short sternpost. Another construction employs a sternpost with deadwood inboard of it, to which the horn timber is drifted in the same manner as the horn timber of a wooden fishing schooner is fastened.

     The Cape Island fishing boat and its counterpart in New England, the Jonesport boat, have replaced the older fishing launches which were usually modifications of old sailing boats, slow under power but safe and seaworthy. The high speed of the Cape Island model is a great attraction to fishermen and has led to the introduction of a 55 ft. (16.8 m.) standard design of long-liner which can go 60 and 70 miles to sea. Fishing boats of this model have been built to 57 ft. (17.4 m.) length.