A lerret is a type of rowing boat designed for use off the

Chesil Beach Chesil Beach (also known as Chesil Bank) in Dorset, England is one of three major shingle beach structures in Britain.A. P. Carr and M. W. L. Blackley, "Investigations Bearing on the Age and Development of Chesil Beach, Dorset, and the Associat ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

. It is of wooden, clinker construction and varied in size, depending on the number of oars – the largest would have up to eight. It was primarily used for fishing but, in emergencies, lerrets would be used as

lifeboats Lifeboat may refer to: Rescue vessels * Lifeboat (shipboard), a small craft aboard a ship to allow for emergency escape * Lifeboat (rescue), a boat designed for sea rescues * Airborne lifeboat, an air-dropped boat used to save downed airmen A ...

Construction

It was an open

clinker-built Clinker built (also known as lapstrake) is a method of boat building where the edges of hull (watercraft), hull planks overlap each other. Where necessary in larger craft, shorter planks can be joined end to end, creating a longer strake or hull ...

rowing boat Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...

about 16 feet long with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of about 5–6 feet, when rowed by 2 to 4 pairs of rowers. To facilitate launching and beaching on the steep shingle of Chesil Beach, the stern was sharp with a high

sternpost A sternpost is the upright structural member or post at the stern of a (generally wooden) ship or a boat, to which are attached the transoms and the rearmost left corner part of the stern. The sternpost may either be completely vertical or may ...

and the bottom of the craft was flat. A particular boat, ''Ena'', which was built in 1905, was made with twelve planks of

wych elm ''Ulmus glabra'' Hudson, the wych elm or Scots elm, has the widest range of the European elm species, from Ireland eastwards to the Urals, and from the Arctic Circle south to the mountains of the Peloponnese and Sicily, where the species reaches i ...

and steam-bent rock elm on each side. Its

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was made from

pitch pine ''Pinus rigida'', the pitch pine, is a small-to-medium-sized pine. It is native to eastern North America, primarily from central Maine south to Georgia and as far west as Kentucky. It is found in environments which other species would find unsuit ...

and it had four oars which were secured to the

thole pin A rowlock , sometimes spur (due to the similarity in shape and size), oarlock (USA) or gate, is a brace that attaches an oar to a boat. When a boat is rowed, the rowlock acts as a fulcrum for the oar. On ordinary rowing craft, the rowlocks are ...

s so that they would not float off while the crew worked the nets.

History

The design dates back to the 17th century and the name is a contraction of ''Lady of Loretto'' – the first boat of this type was built by a local ship's master who had formerly traded with Italy and named it after the shrine at Loretto. The craft were mainly used for

seine fishing Seine fishing (or seine-haul fishing; ) is a method of fishing that employs a surrounding net, called a seine, that hangs vertically in the water with its bottom edge held down by weights and its top edge buoyed by floats. Seine nets can be dep ...

, catching shoals of

mackerel Mackerel is a common name applied to a number of different species of pelagic fish, mostly from the family Scombridae. They are found in both temperate and tropical seas, mostly living along the coast or offshore in the oceanic environment. ...

every Autumn. Each village would have its own company and a six-oared boat would require a team of 14 men – six to row, one to pay out the net from the stern and the rest to handle the operations on the shore. The numbers of lerrets declined from about a hundred to fifty at the end of the 19th century. The largest types with eight oars disappeared in the 1870s and the six-oared models went in the 1920s. In 2010, there were only about 4 left so a new one was built to preserve the type.

Lifeboats

While the boat was built primarily for fishing, it was also handy in rough surf and so was used to rescue other vessels. When the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. It i ...

was formed, the Portland mariners preferred to keep their local lerrets for the purpose and so two were adopted as

References

Dorset Rowing boats Types of fishing vessels {{boat-stub