pearling

Lugger Ship type Article A lugger is a sailing vessel defined by its rig, using the lugsail on all of its one or several masts. They were widely used as working craft, particularly off the coasts of France, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Luggers varied extensively in size and design. Many were undecked, open boats, some of which operated from beach landings (such as Hastings or Deal). Others were fully decked craft (typified by the Zulu and many other sailing drifters). Some larger examples might carry lug topsails.[1] Reaper, a Fifie, a type of sailing drifter built in the Northeast of Scotland Luggers were used extensively for smuggling from the middle of the 18th century onwards; their fast hulls and powerful rigs regularly allowed them to outpace any Revenue vessel in service. The French three-masted luggers also served as privateers and in general trade. As smuggling declined about 1840, the mainmast of three-masted luggers tended to be discarded, with larger sails being set on the fore and mizzen. This gave more clear space in which to work fishing nets.[2]: 15–19  Australia Some of the early pearling luggers used off the northern coastline of Australia from about the 1870s, often ship's boats, carried a lugsail, but the purpose-built boats that were used from the 1880s stopped using it over time. The majority of these were gaff-rigged ketches, although they continued to be called pearling luggers until the present day. Source: wikidocumentaries-demo.wmflabs.org/Q783186?language=en

In one of the South Pacific Studies titled: "A Fleeting Aquapelago: A Theoretical Consideration of the Japanese Presence in the Torres Strait The 1880s-1940s by HAYWARD Philip and KONISHI Junko The lugger Trenton was mentioned as a place for exchanging cultural traditions between Japanese and Torres Strait people between pearling sessions: One of our 1999 informants, Yuzuru Kuhara, from Izumo village in Wakayama (now part of Kushimoto city), recalled that a group of his fellow Izumo crew members working on the lugger Trenton made a point of learning Torres Strait songs and dances and even performed these at festivals in Japan in the late 1940s after their repatriation from Australia.

Before the beginning of the 20th century, the only means of obtaining pearls was by manually gathering very large numbers of pearl oysters or mussels from the ocean floor or lake or river bottom. The bivalves were then brought to the surface, opened, and the tissues searched. More than a ton were searched in order to find at least 3-4 quality beads.[citation needed] In order to find enough pearl oysters, free-divers were often forced to descend to depths of over 100 feet on a single breath, exposing them to the dangers of hostile creatures, waves, eye damage, and drowning, often as a result of shallow water blackout on resurfacing.[2] Because of the difficulty of diving and the unpredictable nature of natural pearl growth in pearl oysters, pearls of the time were extremely rare and of varying quality. Although harvesting of shells had long been practiced by Aboriginal Australians, pearl diving only began in the 1850s off the coast of Western Australia and the pearling industry remained strong until the advent of World War I, when the price of mother-of-pearl plummeted with the invention and expanded use of plastics for buttons and other articles previously been made of shell. In the 1870s pearling began in the Torres Strait, off Far North Queensland. By the 1890s, pearling was the largest industry in the region, and had a huge impact on coastal Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Because of the dangers of diving, almost no white people participated, and Asian, Pacific, and Indigenous Australians were used as cheap labor for the industry. Shells were the main aim for collection, and the whole industry was essentially a colonial one geared to procuring mother-of-pearl for sale to overseas markets for the making of buttons. As time went on and sources were depleted, divers were encouraged to dive deeper, making the enterprise even more dangerous. Divers experimented with the heavy diving suit, discarding the full diving suit and using the helmet and corselet only, which became standard practice until 1960. "Hookah" gear, tested to 48 fathoms (87 meters) in 1922, was considered unsuitable for the strong tides in these waters, and the later Scuba equipment did not supply enough air to spend the time required underwater and for decompression, while surfacing [10] Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_hunting

Sketty Belle (ship, 1877) Type: Pearling schooner Completed: 1877 History 1877 Named 'Crest of the Wave Official number: 74939 Port: Sydney Owner: John Saunders 1898 Owner: George Smith 1900 or 1901 Renamed Sketty Belle; Flag: Australia Port: Sydney Owner: George Smith 1907 No longer in register Source commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sketty_Belle_(ship,_1877)