Built at Aberdeen in 1912, Ben Tarbert later became Hartlepool’s HL21 and served through wartime as an Admiralty boom defence vessel before returning to the fishing fleet. Her story links the working fish quay, steam trawling and the hidden wartime service of Britain’s fishing vessels.
Only three weeks after the First World War Armistice, the North Shields trawler Ethelwulf was lost with all hands after striking wartime mines in the North Sea. A powerful story of fishing families, danger and remembrance.
