How I flew the flag in the Cod Wars
i AM so angry that EU negotiator Michel Barnier is moaning that a third of the European fishing fleet could be lost if Britain doesn’t allow free access to our waters after Brexit. in the 1970s, i never heard anyone offering any sympathetic words when the British fishing feet was destroyed by the Common Fisheries Policy. What did i do in the Cod Wars? As skipper of a trawler, i disabled an icelandic Coast Guard gunboat! in April 1973, we were enjoying a bit of peaceful fishing when the gunboat Odinn called us on VhF radio and warned us to stop. But i had a secret weapon: a fog buoy, which had been used by Merchant Navy convoys during World War ii. i hoped that towing it behind the trawler would dissuade the icelandic Coast Guard from going across the stern and cutting our gear. i told Odinn’s captain it was connected to our main generator and would send a powerful electric shock back up the cutting wire. Odinn proceeded to turn alongside us anyway to show the cutter being launched. My bosun was on the boat deck where the rope attached to the fog buoy was made fast. When the Odinn got to just short of crossing our stern, i shouted: ‘Let it go now!’ The timing was perfect. The rope went round its propellers and stripped them from the shaft. The Odinn would have to be towed back to Reykjavik. The captain, his voice trembling with rage, told me: ‘Other icelandic Coast Guard vessels are expected to arrive shortly. Wherever you go, you will be arrested and never be allowed to fish in iceland again.’ i didn’t wait around long. i got an official telegram with instructions to immediately go outside the 50-mile limit, maintain radio silence and not communicate with anyone. i was to send a telegram informing them of when i would be docking. My reply was an Anglo-Saxon expression! As i was steaming along, i picked up on a group of hull and Grimsby boats on a fish shop (an area where ships congregate when the fishing is plentiful.) They had heard what had happened and invited us to join them. i said they should be aware i might bring a gunboat to them, but they said if that happened we’d all chase it away. We fished there for two or three days and i filled the boat up. We never saw a gunboat. When i got home, i was requested to keep a low profile because sensitive negotiations with the icelandic government were ongoing. The icelanders were offering a deal, but the naive government was being lobbied by greedy trawler owners to keep asking for more, and so we ended up with nothing. A 200-mile limit was imposed around iceland’s coastline, expelling foreign vessels from thousands of square miles of traditional fishing grounds. Norway, Canada and other countries also adopted this policy. For the humber ports of hull and Grimsby, which were distant water operators, this was a disaster. Thousands of people in the fishing industries, catching and processing fish, lost their livelihoods.
TOM WATSON, Fleetwood, Lancs.