Granton Trawler was one of the only films that John Grierson directed himself for the Empire Marketing Board/GPO Film Unit. The documentary style film was made in 1934, and was noted for its experimental use of sound without voice over. [1] [2]
The film is about the "Isabella Grieg" which was a fishing trawler that traveled from Granton Harbour to through the east coast of Edinburgh, then to the fishing grounds between Shetland and Norway. [3]
Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky listed it as one of the 77 masterpieces of world cinema.
John Grierson was a pioneering Scottish documentary maker, often considered the father of British and Canadian documentary film. In 1926, Grierson coined the term "documentary" in a review of Robert J. Flaherty's Moana.
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.
The Cod Wars were a series of 20th-century confrontations between the United Kingdom and Iceland about fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Each of the disputes ended with an Icelandic victory.
The Dogger Bank incident occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, when the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy mistook civilian British fishing trawlers from Kingston upon Hull in the Dogger Bank area of the North Sea for Imperial Japanese Navy torpedo boats and fired on them, also firing on each other in the chaos of the melée.
A fishing trawler is a commercial fishing vessel designed to operate fishing trawls. Trawling is a method of fishing that involves actively dragging or pulling a trawl through the water behind one or more trawlers. Trawls are fishing nets that are pulled along the bottom of the sea or in midwater at a specified depth. A trawler may also operate two or more trawl nets simultaneously.
Granton is a district in the north of Edinburgh, Scotland. Granton forms part of Edinburgh's waterfront along the Firth of Forth and is, historically, an industrial area having a large harbour. Granton is part of Edinburgh's large scale waterfront regeneration programme.
ICGV Óðinn is a decommissioned offshore patrol vessel formerly operated by the Icelandic Coast Guard. She is the oldest ship in the coastguard's fleet, and it is believed that her Burmeister & Wain engines are the only such engines that are still serviceable in the world today. Since her withdrawal from active duty, she has served as a floating exhibit at the Reykjavík Maritime Museum in Reykjavík Harbour. The ship is still maintained, and operative as of June 2022.
A fishing vessel is a boat or ship used to catch fish and other valuable nektonic aquatic animals in the sea, lake or river. Humans have used different kinds of surface vessels in commercial, artisanal and recreational fishing.
Naval trawlers are vessels built along the lines of a fishing trawler but fitted out for naval purposes; they were widely used during the First and Second World Wars. Some—known in the Royal Navy as "Admiralty trawlers"— were purpose-built to naval specifications, others adapted from civilian use. Fishing trawlers were particularly suited for many naval requirements because they were robust vessels designed to work heavy trawls in all types of weather, and had large clear working decks. A minesweeper could be created by replacing the trawl with a mine sweep. Adding depth charge racks on the deck, ASDIC sonar below, and a 3-inch (76 mm) or 4-inch (102 mm) gun in the bow equipped the trawler for anti-submarine duties.
Fishing is a prehistoric practice dating back at least 70,000 years. Since the 16th century, fishing vessels have been able to cross oceans in pursuit of fish, and since the 19th century it has been possible to use larger vessels and in some cases process the fish on board. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping.
The Viola is a steam trawler built in 1906 in Hull. She is the oldest surviving steam trawler in the world. During her long career, she was known as HMTViola, Kapduen, and Dias. She is currently beached at Grytviken in South Georgia, though there are currently plans afoot to return her to Hull.
The Overseas Patrol Squadron is a front-line squadron of the Royal Navy with responsibility for patrolling the UK's Extended Fisheries Zone, both at home and around British Overseas Territories. The squadron, with headquarters at HMNB Portsmouth, is equipped with eight of the River-class patrol vessels.
Yarmouth Fishing Boats Leaving Harbour is an 1896 British short black-and-white silent documentary film, directed by Birt Acres, featuring a fleet of fishing smacks leaving the harbour at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK.
HMT Richard Bacon (FY3587) was a British Castle class naval trawler completed in 1918. She served through both world wars under two different names and also had a lengthy career as a civilian fishing trawler. For a short while, she functioned as a support vessel for a famous transatlantic flight by a group of Italian bombers. She was scrapped in 1954 after her boiler failed during a storm.
Empire Fisher was a 268 GRT trawler that was built as Herrlichkeit in 1922 by Reiherstieg Schiffswerfte & Maschinenfabrik, Hamburg, Germany for the Nordsee Deutsche Hochsee Fischerei Bremen-Cuxhaven AG. She was captured in 1940 by HMS Glasgow, passed to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT) and renamed Empire Fisher. She was sold in 1948. Sold for scrapping in 1952, she was resold to Ireland and scrapped later that year.
Herring Hunt is a 1953 short documentary film directed by Julian Biggs and produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).
On 3 August 1942 the fishing trawler Dureenbee was attacked and badly damaged by Japanese submarine I-175 off the town of Moruya, New South Wales. Three of the trawler's crew were killed, and the ship was subsequently damaged beyond repair after running aground. While the incident has been called a war crime, Allied submarines also conducted similar attacks during World War II.
Christine Dorothy Jensen, MBE (1939–2001) was a British safety campaigner. She helped to lead a campaign that led to improvements in the safety of fishing trawlers following the 1968 Hull triple trawler tragedy, in which her brother was killed. Jensen later served on the committee of the British Fishermen's Association and founded a fishing heritage organisation. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2000.
Yvonne Blenkinsop was a British woman known for her campaign to improve safety in the offshore fishing industry following the 1968 Hull triple trawler tragedy. She became only the third woman in 130 years to be awarded the freedom of the city of Hull in 2018.
The Yorkshire coast fishery has long been part of the Yorkshire economy for centuries. The 114-mile (183 km) Yorkshire Coast, from the River Tees to the Humber estuary, has many ports both small and large where the fishing trade thrives. The historic ports at Hull and Whitby are important locations for the landing and processing of fish and shellfish. Scarborough and Bridlington are also sites of commercial fishing.