Fishing Clanker

On my second visit to Bankette, I joined the local cooks in the mid afternoon to meet the fishing boats as they returned to the harbor. In a matter of hours, the docks had shifted from quiet stretches of sea-sprayed wood, to the rowdiest marketplace I'd ever seen. I was nearly elbowed into the water by an orcish poissonier trying to beat me to an order of tuna! A friendly local sous chef, probably seeing the confusion and wonder on my face, decided to act as my tour guide for a moment and pointed me to the oldest, most famed clanker in the harbor, the F/V Ijeoma. It may not have seemed special, or much different from any other clanker, were it not for its bow encrusted with dangling rusty frying pans.
Once the chaos calmed and the customers went home with their piscine prizes, I got a chance to chat with a haggard dwarven sailor who'd been serving on the Ijeoma for over fifteen years. He told me those rusty frying pans were gifts from all the cooks in Bankette who had been coming to the harbor to meet the Ijeoma for years. I asked if I could contribute a pan, but he declined with a grin and told me that they only accepted gifts from customers they'd known for at least five years. When I heard the F/V Ijeoma was the oldest boat in the harbor, I hadn't actually considered how old that might be.

— Julienne, Adventurer, Chef

Though the Kaleido Sea is overflowing with ships of various make and model, the most populous style is the fishing clanker. Typical fishing clankers range from about 15 to 25 meters (49 to 82 ft.) in length, with a beam of 5 to 8 meters (16 to 26 ft), and with a cargo capacity between 40 and 200 tons. The smallest fishing clankers call for a minimum of four sailors, in addition to their dedicated fishers, while the largest may crew upwards of 20. Though many fishing clankers depart at dawn and return in the afternoon to sell their wares, vessels equipped with pickling equipment or stores of permagelum regularly spend between 6 and 12 weeks at sea, fishing and making deliveries to remote locales.
The lapstrake construction of their hulls features overlapping oak planks, caulked with tarred moss, creating a flexible hull with the freedom to gently twist along its long axis, and allowing it to more safely endure the rolling ocean waves. Sails are made of canvas, and old retired sails are seldom discarded, instead seeing use as shade covers for workers on the deck in fair weather, or as the covers of merchant stands when the clanker returns to port to sell their catch.
There is no singular naming convention for fishing clankers, and they may follow any language or theme. However, all clankers are designated with the 'F/V' prefix, to denote their status as fishing vessels as opposed to ships built for exploration, defense, cargo, or passenger-carrying.

Etymology

There is no proof or widely-accepted consensus on the root of the term "clanker", but the most popular theory is that it is derived from a mishearing of the term "clinker-built" (also known as lapstrake), referring to the style of plank layering. Another popular theory references the sound made by tools and cooking utensils hanging on the outside of the ship to free up interior space for cargo and crew dwelling. This theory is further bolstered by the fact that some fishing clankers intentionally hang old pots, pans, cowbells, and the like from the outside of their ships to announce their arrival when returning to docks at night or in foul weather.

by Dream by app.wombo.art/

Beam

5 to 8 meters (16 to 26 ft.)

Length

15 to 25 meters (49 to 82 ft.)

Speed

3.2 kmh (2 mph)

Complement / Crew

4 to 20+

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

40 to 200 tons