[HEIRLOOM TECHNOLOGY

JCH_EAR_TLIE _DAS_OQUI_RTH_Y’S]

By Tim Anderson

Charlie is 78 years old and he’s been fishing for mullet in Hawks Nest, Australia, for over 60 years.

Today, like most days, he’s sitting on the beach, watching the water through polarized sunglasses. He hopes to see a dark shadow moving across the bay, a school of mullet coming in from the ocean. Each year the mullet come to spawn in the estuaries that feed the bay. Then he and his son Les will launch their boat to try and catch some in their net.

He calls his boat a “dory.” It’s a greatly modified runabout with a jet ski power plant. He added a cowling at the front, along with the controls from the jet ski. The engine and water jet impeller drive are in the stern, covered with a smooth housing.

Their truck has a trailer hitch on the front as well as the back. To launch the boat into surf, the boat is put on the trailer as shown (top) and pointed at the water with the skipper on board. At the proper moment, the driver of the truck drives toward the water. He hits the brakes just before getting there. The boat slides off the trailer into the water, and the skipper drives it out through the waves. To get back

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in through the waves, the skipper rides in just behind a big wave, guns the engine, and runs the boat up the beach to dry sand. A perfect system.

The fishing nets are piled on top and nearly fill the boat. Behind the driver there can be no projections that might snag a net. When the boat reaches the school of fish, he throws out an anchor attached to one end of the net. The anchor starts pulling the long net out over the stern of the boat. As the net is pulled over the stern, he drives the boat around the school of fish, attempting to encircle them.

It’s a six-week fishing season here, and then the fish move north. The local fishermen don’t follow the fish; they go back to trapping lobster. Charlie and Les built their own lobster trawler as well as fiberglass rowing skiffs, based on traditional shapes, for when the jet dory is overkill.

Tim Anderson, founder of Z Corp., has a home at mit.edu/robot.