Dutch fishermen came every year, for centuries, to follow the herring down the east coast. Their larger vessels were called busses and they developed very effective fishing techniques. Their merchantmen sailed the high seas and came north to take out fish and coal.
The pioneering volume "Safeguard of Sailors", full of sketches, made from the sea, of north east European harbours, was translated from the Dutch into English by Robert Norman. The 1605 edition was printed in London. Here was good advice.
"If you sail to Flamborough head, take heed of the Smith(wick) sand that layeth thwart or between Burlington (Bridlington) and Flamborough Head." If the winds were westerly and you couldn't get above Flamborough Head, you were advised to take heed how you anchored in Flamborough road "for there be foul ground".
The mark that you set your position by to miss the foul ground was "the windmill that standeth on the lower part of Flamborough". And "If ye be bound about Flamborough head, look that the tide lett you not into the sea".
John Rushton
Other articles that you may find interesting
•Flamborough Head - ancient fishing village
•Instructions to sailors - Flamborough Head
•The fishing community in Flamborough head - superstition and bad luck
•Was there a roman port in scarborough? By John Rushton
•Theakston's guide to the Scarborough fisheries 1866
•The coble boats of Filey Flamborough and Runswicks Bay
•An early history of Filey and its fishing community
•Scarborough fishermen and the U-Boats by Godfrey Arthur
•Thomas Hinderwell - history of Scarboroughs fisheries
•Suzanne Pollard and her Filey Fishing relatives
•The Crimlisk fishing family history in Scarborough Filey and Hull
•The Harwood and Bullamore fishing family history in Scarborough
•Log of the German U-Boat which sank eleven Scarborough trawlers in 1916
•Scarboroughs Fishermen versus Firemen Football match on Boxing Day
•Scarborough's harbour and the coal trade. Thomas Hinderwell
•The 200 year history of scarboroughs RNLI
•Bempton cliffs - history egg collecting and wildlife
•Coastal erosion in the 19th Century around the North Bay and Scarborough Castle area
•Scarboroughs Old Town and its connection to the sea
•The history of the herring fishing in the North Sea
•Attacks On Trawlers in Scarborough in WW2
•Trawling During WW2 around scarborough and the North - East coast
•Sailors graves on the Scarborough coastline.
•1000 years of fishing
•Fishing names in Scarborough's Old Town - Cammish Jenkinson and Sheader
•The worst day in Fileys history - a hurricane
•Martin Frobisher. An article on scarboroughs maritime history by John Rushton
•Scarborough Fish in Mediaeval monasteries. by John Rushton.
•Havens on the North Yorkshire coast. An article on scarboroughs maritime history by John Rushton
•Haddock Legend, And Herring Fishery in Filey
•Climbing the cliffs in filey in 1779 - Yorkshires maritime heritage
•Kolberg lays a minefield off Scarborough
•Watching for ships by the harbour walls in Scarborough
•Filey and its early fishing industry
•Sustainable fishing - quotas and a way of life
•Two prominent Scarborough people accompany a trawler in Iceland
•Fishing farming and tourism in the early Filey - 1805
•World war one outbreak. The war effort in Scarborough
•The life of Scarborough fishermen
•Pollack,codfish,and pollack fishing in Scarborough in the 1800's
•Church Tithes in the early fishing history of scarborough
