well-boat

See also: well boat and wellboat

English

WOTD – 21 November 2019

Etymology

A modern well-boat picking up live salmon

From well +‎ boat.[1]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛlbəʊt/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈwɛlˌboʊt/

Noun

well-boat (plural well-boats)

(nautical) A fishing vessel designed to carry live fish in a tank or well. [from early 17th c.]
Synonym: live fish carrier
- 1695, [Company of the Royal Fishery of England], “A Collection, with Some Observations, Touching the Royal Fishery of Great Britain and Ireland. [First, Increase of Shipping.]”, in A Collection of Advertisements, Advices, and Directions, Relating to the Royal Fishery within the British Seas, &c. […], London: Printed for H.M. and are to be sold by J. Whitlock […], OCLC 84777294, page 21:
  They [the "Hollanders", that is, Dutch] have One Hundred Dogger-Boats, of One Hundred and Fifty Tuns a piece, or thereabouts: Seaven Hundred Pincks and Well-Boats, from Sixty to One Hundred Tuns a piece; which altogether fiſh upon the Coaſts of England and Scotland, for Cod and Ling only; [...]
- 1699, William Dampier, chapter XIV, in A New Voyage Round the World. […], volume I, 4th corrected edition, Printed for James Knapton, […], OCLC 1049891899, page 401:
  In our way we overtook a great Jonk that came from Palimbam, a Town on the Iſland Sumatra: [...] This Veſſel was of the Chineſe make, full of little Rooms or Partitions like our Well-boats, [...]
- 1748 November 11, Peter Kalm [i.e., Pehr Kalm], “October the 31st [1748; Julian calendar]”, in John Reinhold Forster [i.e., Johann Reinhold Forster], transl., Travels into North America; Containing Its Natural History, and a Circumstantial Account of Its Plantations and Agriculture in General, […] Translated into English […], volume I, Warrington, Cheshire: Printed by William Eyres, published 1770, OCLC 1086516315, page 241:
  [T]hough the people fiſhed ever ſo often, they could never find any ſigns of lobſters being in this part of the ſea: they were therefore continually brought in great wellboats from New England, where they are plentiful; but it happened that one of theſe wellboats broke in pieces near Hellgate, about ten Engliſh miles from New York, and all the lobſters in it got off. Since that time they have ſo multiplied in this part of the ſea, that they are now caught in the greateſt abundance.
- 1759, “Cap. XXVII. An Act to Repeal so Much of an Act Passed in the Twenty-ninth Year of His Present Majesty’s Reign, Concerning a Free Market for Fish at Westminster, […]”, in [Owen Ruffhead], editor, The Statutes at Large, from the Thirtieth Year of the Reign of King George the Second to the End of the Second Year of the Reign of King George the Third. […], volume VIII, London: Printed for Mark Basket, […], and by the assigns of Robert Basket; [a]nd by Henry Woodfall and William Strahan, […], published 1764, OCLC 43711506, page 474:
  VIII. And it be further enacted by the Authority aforeſaid, That no Live Salmon, Salmon Trout, Turbot, Large Freſh Cod, Half Freſh Cod, Haddock, Seate, Freſh Ling, Soles or Whitings, ſhall at any Time after the Arrival thereof at the Nore as aforeſaid be put into any Well Boat or Store Boat from or out of any ſuch Fishing Ship, Sloop, Smack or other Fiſhing Veſſel or Veſſels as aforeſaid, in which the ſame ſhall have been brought to the Nore; [...]
- 1775, “an American” [pseudonym; John Mitchell or Arthur Young?], chapter XIII, in American Husbandry. Containing an Account of the Soil, Climate, Production and Agriculture, of the British Colonies in North-America and the West-Indies; […] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: Printed for J[ohn] Bew, […], OCLC 1026162915, page 187:
  And the rivers are moſt of them very full of fiſh, eſpecially in the back country, to which parties are made in boats with nets; in which excurſions ſhooting is joined: the fiſh they take are brought home alive in well-boats, and put into their ſtores: [...]
- 1822, John Fleming, “Fishes”, in The Philosophy of Zoology; or A General View of the Structure, Functions, and Classification of Animals. [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, Edinburgh: Printed [by P[atrick] Neill] for Archibald Constable & Co. […]; London: Hurst, Robinson & Co., OCLC 7335094510, page 371:
  Where circumstances permit, they [the fish] are in general used in a fresh state; and even in large cities, where the supply must be brought from a distance, various expedients are resorted to, to prevent the progress of putrefaction. By far the best contrivance for this purpose is the well-boat, in which fish may be brought to the place of sale even in a living state.
- 1867, J[ohn] G[eorge] Wood, “The Crustacea”, in The Boy’s Own Book of Natural History, London; New York, N.Y.: George Routledge and Sons, […], OCLC 187308820, page 333:
  When taken, the crabs are kept alive in well[-]boats, until wanted.
- 1928, Charles Haskins Townsend, “Collecting the Specimens”, in The Public Aquarium: Its Construction, Equipment, and Management: Appendix VII to the Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries for 1928 (Bureau of Fisheries Document; no. 1045), Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, OCLC 1049388457; in Report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries for the Fiscal Year 1928 with Appendixes: In Two Parts, part I, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1929, OCLC 867471368, page 284:
  A well boat or small vessel with a water compartment, to which sea water has access, is ideal for the transportation of marine specimens. There are many such vessels in use along the Atlantic coast wherever it is customary to carry fishes and lobsters to market alive. [...] The New York Aquarium has a well boat for this work, which permits great extension of the collecting field and gives excellent results.
- 1970, Robert M. Howland and Gertrude Kavanagh, editors, Sport Fishery Abstracts: An Abstracting Service for Fishery Research and Management, volume 15, number 1, Narragansett, R.I.: Narragansett Marine Game Fish Laboratory, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior, ISSN 0038-786X, OCLC 72770348, paragraph 12110, pages 200–201:
  Inland transport of live cod is a far cheaper method than wellboat transport. On the other hand the psychological stress on the fish is much higher and it can by no means be compared with wellboat transport in this field.
- 2015 April, Tim McBride; with Ralph Berrier, Jr., Saltwater Cowboy: The Rise and Fall of a Marijuana Empire, New York, N.Y.: St. Martin’s Press, →ISBN, page 34:
  We had to intercept, load, and run the shipment to our smaller, faster T-Crafts and well boats waiting near the shore to take it to a stash house. A typical job for us.
- 2016, Michiko Iizuka; Pedro Roje; Valentina Vera, “The Development of Salmon Agriculture in Chile into an Internationally Competitive Industry: 1985–2007”, in Akio Hosono, Michiko Iizuka, and Jorge Katz, editors, Chile’s Salmon Industry: Policy Challenges in Managing Public Goods, Tokyo: Springer Japan, →ISBN, section 3.2 (The Expansion of Intermediate Inputs and Services Suppliers), page 86:
  Another good example of the development of the specialized service supplier is the wellboats industry. ASENAV (a firm located in Valdivia, Los Rios region), a manufacturer of marine vessels, undertook the production of wellboats with up to 800-ton capacity for the transport of salmon.

Alternative forms

well boat
wellboat

Translations

fishing vessel designed to carry live fish in a tank or well

Kurdish:
Northern Kurdish: belema bîrî f
Norwegian:
Bokmål: brønnbåt m
Nynorsk: brønnbåt m

References

“well-boat, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2014; “well-boat, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams

betallow

[1] “well-boat, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2014; “well-boat, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.