Here you see Fishing Vessel Tarrfish at the Town Dock in Naskeag Harbor yesterday. She’s having her winter mast and boom reinstalled for the scallop season, which begins in December.
FV Dear Abbie:, moored in the Harbor, already has hers installed, as do several of our winter fleet:
The mast and boom are used to lower, pull, and raise the netted “drag” that’s used to scoop up scallops from the sea bottom. The drag is a form of the historic New Bedford dredge that has been used to scoop shellfish in New England waters for centuries.
Abbie: appears also to have her temporary white “shelling hut” installed behind her wheelhouse. This wooden hut is where the dredged mollusks will be shucked from their shells and sorted during very cold weather. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 29, 2023.)