Lerret

The design dates back to the 17th century and the name is a contraction of Lady of Loretto – the first boat of this type was built by a local ship's master who had formerly traded with Italy and named it after the shrine at Loretto.^[4]

The craft were mainly used for seine fishing, catching shoals of mackerel every Autumn. Each village would have its own company and a six-oared boat would require a team of 14 men – six to row, one to pay out the net from the stern and the rest to handle the operations on the shore.^[3]

The numbers of lerrets declined from about a hundred to fifty at the end of the 19th century. The largest types with eight oars disappeared in the 1870s and the six-oared models went in the 1920s.^[3] In 2010, there were only about 4 left so a new one was built to preserve the type.^[1][5]

While the boat was built primarily for fishing, it was also handy in rough surf and so was used to rescue other vessels. When the Royal National Lifeboat Institution was formed, the Portland mariners preferred to keep their local lerrets for the purpose and so two were adopted as lifeboats.^[6][7]