Smacks at Maldon 1952. [DW]
Maldon waterside in 1952. A sailing barge lies at the town quay and the ketch yacht TOPSY just stern of her, close by the bargeyard of Walter Cook and Son. Douglas Went has got on board one of the seven or eight Maldon smacks which lay along the shingle shore of The Hythe. Her deck is cluttered with the tools of oyster dredging; dredges and their warps to starboard and a wire bucket amidships. The foresail is laid on the foredeck, where an earthenware pot hold drinking water. Stowed mainsails, with their gaff and boom, are out to port and give the smacks a 'lust in' as they settle when the tide falls and so do not lay out into the river, in danger of excessive heel when taking the ground. The third smack in the line has a peter net for flounders hoisted to dry up the mast. St. Mary's Church stands majestically to the left and Maldon seems asleep on the high water. [JL]
Plate.81 in SWW.
Used in The Northseamen page 71.
Date: 1952