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Today I took my kids down to Hastings for a nostalgia-filled trip to see what remains of the once-proud fleet of beach-based wooden clinker-built fishing boats.
It’s a trip I loved to take as a child, and I still very much like to visit now. But the dwindling numbers of the tubby old clinker-built beach boats is a powerful reminder of time passing, and the inevitable loss of things we once took for granted. Of course, I’m not talking about the fishing fleet as a whole – there are still many steel and fibreglass boats fishing off the beach at Hastings, and I’m quite sure the crews who still hunt the fish are as brave and tough they always were.
But some of the old fishing boats remain, and so I was able to bring back some photos that will hopefully spark some memories for some, and attract the attention of those of you who have not made this particular pilgrimage to one of the great centres of the English south-coast fishing fleet.
For more on working boats: http://intheboatshed.net/?cat=5