Boats

The local fishing boats - fast yacht-like trawlers known as Morecambe Bay prawners or Lancashire nobbies - were developed to exploit the shallow waters off the coast. They became a common sight along the seaboard of North West England as far as southern Scotland and North Wales. 

The Crossfield boatyards at Arnside, north of Morecambe, were the main builders of this type of trawler. Prawners varied in size but were typically 35 feet long with a nine-foot beam. They were crewed by one or two men (or a man and a boy) who were often father and son, or another member of the same family. In the early 20 th century it was estimated that three-quarters of the boats were single-handed.