Instructions to sailors - Flamborough Head

Dutch fishermen came every year, for centuries, to follow the herring down the east coast. Their larger vessels were called busses and they developed very effective fishing techniques. Their merchantmen sailed the high seas and came north to take out fish and coal.

The pioneering volume "Safeguard of Sailors", full of sketches, made from the sea, of north east European harbours, was translated from the Dutch into English by Robert Norman. The 1605 edition was printed in London. Here was good advice.

"If you sail to Flamborough head, take heed of the Smith(wick) sand that layeth thwart or between Burlington (Bridlington) and Flamborough Head." If the winds were westerly and you couldn't get above Flamborough Head, you were advised to take heed how you anchored in Flamborough road "for there be foul ground".

The mark that you set your position by to miss the foul ground was "the windmill that standeth on the lower part of Flamborough". And "If ye be bound about Flamborough head, look that the tide lett you not into the sea".

John Rushton



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