Hull Maritime volunteer, Julie Corbett was given the opportunity to meet a group of young people undertaking the final cohort of the Maritime Futures programme.
In February 2025 I was invited to see the net making session of the ‘Maritime Futures’ programme. This intensive three-week programme was designed to be delivered to small groups aged 19 or over, who were interested in a career in fishing or the offshore sectors, such as oil rigs.
The programme was provided by a local trainer, East Coast Maritime Training and fully funded by the Hull Maritime Project. You can learn more about the training provider here. More than 100 people have completed the course and more details of the their successes can be read here.
The training session, led by Charlie Waddy was in full swing when I arrived. After brief introductions and permissions for photography I began following the process of net mending.
Charlie Waddy, recently retired after more than 50 years of experience in the deep-sea fishing industry. His last trip in 2022 was aboard the Kirkella as first mate. In an interview with the Yorkshire Post he described the weather "It was absolutely atrocious, minus 20C, hurricane winds, icebergs”. You can read the interview here.
Conditions in the training room were obviously much calmer than at sea. Charlie recalled that his mother taught him to mend nets when he was a young boy.
In a blog post from 2022 (here) you can read about Peter Burrows, a former deckie learner, talking about net braiding. Net making and mending was known as net braiding and was a cottage industry in the Hessle Road area before wholescale automation of net making.
During the whole learning time the conversations were not only about nets and fishing but about Charlie answering questions related to working at sea. There was an incredible generous sharing of stories. The trainees had a range of work and leisure experiences from ex Royal Navy to photojournalism to family members sailing small yachts.
It was intriguing to watch the knotting process. The nets pinned on the panels are static and restrained. Different coloured twine is used to illustrate the structure of the net.
The make-up of a trawl and fishing gear is very detailed. Parts of the net have different names, shapes and purposes.
Three knots were taught, sheet bend, hitch and double hitch. Putting them together in the right place, with the right lengths between knots and either right to left or left to right was the tricky part of net mending. Nets have an up and down as well. They may have a back and front, but I was a little lost at this point. The net’s orientation is worked out by how a knot lies on the bight. The bight is the slack piece of rope between its ends.
Charlie mentioned that these orange nets here are softer than ones used at sea. As with some industries there develops a local vocabulary. Charlie called each diamond cell of the net a ‘mash’. The repair of the net had to begin and end on an ‘arther’.
I left before Charlie started the session on bigger holes in the net. It was a fascinating insight into a skill used in sectors of the maritime industry.
I would like to record my thanks to Charlie Waddy and the trainees for allowing me to see part of their training.
