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Vigilance BM76

Brixham, a fishing port in Devon on England’s South West coast, was once home to one of the world’s largest fleets of wooden sailing trawlers. Indeed 'beam trawling' was developed there. Between the 1880s and 1920s over 300 of the graceful old ships were built in the town’s shipyards. Today only six of them remain,forming Brixham’s heritage fleet.

A few people in Brixham can still remember the days of fishing under sail and many families have artifacts – photos, log books, crew service certificates, ships pennants – from their forebears who built and sailed the trawlers. Recognizing the significance of this historical record, a project was launched in 2000, with the help of a small grant from the Lottery Fund, to develop an archive of Brixham Sailing Trawlers

A key component of the archive is the Lanfear Brixham Sailing Trawler database, which contains the records of all the Sailing Trawlers that were Registered in Brixham and enables searches by boat name or number, owner, skipper and, indeed, any other key word in the database.  Click here to start your search