Major Fishery (ETW building)
| Major Fishery | |||||||
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| Category: | Port - Fish | ||||||
| Level: | 2 | ||||||
| Turns to build: | 4 | ||||||
| Building cost: | 1200 | ||||||
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| Requires | |||||||
 Fishing Fleet | |||||||
A major fishery is a complex network of workshops and small industries, all providing the equipment needed for large scale fishing.
Life for a fisherman is hard, with months at sea in harsh conditions chasing the shoals. Ashore, there are as many people working to exploit the catch. Apart from the craftsmen directly involved in ship and boat building, chandlers, net weavers, and the like, there are also smokehouse operators, coopers, salt merchants, shippers – and, in some parts of the world, the inevitable press gangs looking for experienced sailors.
Historically, hunting the largest “fish” of all – whales – was extremely profitable and, depending on the species, highly dangerous. Whalers used hand-thrown harpoons, often from large rowing boats launched from a mother ship. A wounded whale could easily destroy its hunters’ flimsy craft. Again depending on the type, whales were taken for their meat, whalebone (baleen, the “comb” used to filter out plankton when feeding) and their blubber, which was rendered down into whale oil (actually a kind of runny wax) used in lighting, cosmetics and industry.