The Hastings fishermen use a variety of tracked vehicles to launch and land their boats. This particular one is a Track Marshall 90, built by a British firm whose history is a bit complex and poorly written. Needless to say this British owned vehicle manufacturers no longer exist. Their tractors keep going though, even in the corrosive and tough environment of a working beach.
(Click the photo to view in Flickr)
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Interesting contrast of colour and black and white.
They used to use man power to push the boats down the beach, and horses and capstans to pull the boats out.
The circles on the paved area outside of the Jerwood gallery are to denote the the track the horses made.
The horses were leased from the council, they also pulled the dust carts, and were stabled in what is now the Shipwreck Centre.
Then one day an enterprising fisherman bought an old car engine, and used it to work a winch.
Soon the horses were no longer needed.
The bulldozer takes the back breaking work out of launching. Whilst the winches make landing the boats a relatively easy matter.
Beside the bulldozer ,on the beach you can see a winch cable, and also two wooden blocks.
The blocks are called ” trows” .A number of these are placed under the boats keel as it is pulled over the beach, thus saving wear on the keel