With mutual respect....
With Respect....
Around 1830-40 steam engines started to be installed in sailing trawlers.
I don't actually remember this - it was a bit before
my time - but the
Wikipedia article Fishing Trawler says:
"The earliest steam powered fishing boats first appeared in the 1870s and used the trawl system of fishing as well as lines and drift nets. These were large boats, usually 80–90 feet (24–27 m) in length with a beam of around 20 feet (6.1 m). They weighed 40-50 tons and travelled at 9–11 knots (17–20 km/h; 10–13 mph).
The earliest purpose built fishing vessels were designed and made by David Allan in Leith in March 1875, when he converted a drifter to steam power. In 1877, he built the first screw propelled steam trawler in the world. This vessel was Pioneer LH854. She was of wooden construction with two masts and carried a gaff rigged main and mizen using booms, and a single foresail."
So...screw
propelled, steam
powered, trawler...with masts and sails. I can see that trawlers used steam
power prior to that but I believe it was for net retrieval, not propulsion.
Beneteau's boat with an engine (could have been gas, kerosene, or naptha) was (reportedly) a tuna fishing boat. In the photo's published she appears to be a typical French Lugger or Bisquinne, with straight stem and round stern. These boats fished by trolling, with poles and lines with hooks. No one has ever trawled for tuna.
Well, the
Beneteau history page says:
"1884 - Benjamin Bénéteau, a fully qualified shipbuilder, founds the Bénéteau boatyard in Croix de Vie (Vendée) to build trawlers for fishermen.
1910 - Ahead of his time, Benjamin Bénéteau launches the first engine-powered boat. Christened the "vainqueur des jaloux" or conqueror of the jealous, it generates fear among the local communities, who accuse the "oil boat" of scaring the fish away."
So...screw propelled, oil powered, what type? Don't know, but I can see someone assuming it was a trawler, coming from a firm that was founded to build "trawlers for fisherman". And it too appears to have had masts and sails.
So...maybe Benjamin Bénéteau built the first diesel-propelled fishing boat. Was it a trawler? Again, I don't know, but
it appears to have been for the sardine industry - which, today, appears to mostly use gill-nets.