Ramsgate Fishing: What Is Left of the Fleet and Where the Catch Goes

Ramsgate is still a fishing port. The fleet is small, most of the boats are under ten metres, and the trade supports a fraction of the people it did a century ago. It has not stopped, and the reasons it persists are as specific as the reasons it shrank.

The harbour was built as a refuge rather than as a fishing base, which is unusual and matters. Its existence is owed to the Goodwin Sands, and the same sands shape the fishing ground.

The harbour, and why it is here

The Goodwin Sands lie a few miles offshore, a shifting bank that has wrecked ships continuously for as long as ships have used the Downs anchorage. Vessels sheltering behind them from a westerly could be driven onto them when the wind backed, and the coast between the North Foreland and Dover had nowhere safe to run to.

Ramsgate’s harbour was built to be that refuge, over decades in the eighteenth century, and the title of royal harbour was granted after George IV sheltered there. It is the only harbour in the country to carry that designation.

Refuge harbours have deep entrances and substantial walls, which made the place useful for a fishing fleet, then a cross-Channel port, and now a marina with commercial berths. The dredging that keeps the approach usable is a permanent cost carried by the district council, and it is the underlying reason every proposal for the harbour turns into a financial argument.

The size of it now

The fleet is inshore. Day boats, mostly under ten metres, working within a few hours of the harbour and landing daily rather than staying at sea.

That size class is a legal and economic category rather than a description of length. Under-ten-metre vessels sit in a different part of the quota system from the larger boats, and they fish a pool rather than holding individual quota allocations, which has consequences described below.

What they land varies with season and with what the market will take. Sole, plaice, cod, bass, skate, whelks, crab and lobster all feature, along with mixed catch that is worth landing in quantity but not individually.

The crews are small, frequently a skipper and one hand, and frequently related. That is normal in the inshore sector nationally, and it means the loss of a single skipper can end a boat.

Why the fleet shrank

Four things happened together, and attributing the decline to any one of them is a political rather than a factual position.

Stocks fell across the southern North Sea and the Channel over the second half of the twentieth century, from causes including fishing pressure, changes in water temperature and damage to spawning ground.

Quota allocation, once introduced, was distributed on historic track record, which favoured the larger vessels that had the recorded landings. The inshore fleet ended up with a small share of the national allocation relative to the number of boats in it, and that distribution has been contested for decades without substantially changing.

Compliance and safety costs rose, correctly, and they fall disproportionately on small operators. Equipment, certification, catch recording and vessel monitoring cost roughly the same on a nine-metre boat as on one three times the size.

And the local infrastructure went. A fishing port needs ice, fuel, chandlery, net repair, engineering and buyers on the quay. Each of those depends on the others and on enough boats to sustain them. Once the fleet fell below the level that supported the services, the services closed, and the remaining boats had to buy further away, which raised their costs again.

That last mechanism is the one least often described and the most important. Fleets do not simply shrink in proportion. Below a certain size the supporting economy collapses and the decline accelerates.

Where the catch actually goes

Very little of it is eaten locally, which surprises people.

Much of the landed value goes to export or to wholesale markets inland. Shellfish in particular has long been sold into continental markets where demand and price are higher, and species that are routine here are premium elsewhere. A boat can land a good catch of something no local restaurant buys.

The consequences are practical. Margin is lost in transport and handling. Paperwork requirements for export have added cost and delay for consignments that are small and perishable, and for a single-boat business that administrative burden falls on the skipper personally.

Direct sale is the counter-trend. Selling from the quay, to local restaurants, or through a small retail outlet keeps considerably more of the value with the boat, and it is the strategy the more resilient operations have adopted. It requires somebody to do the selling, which on a two-person boat is the constraint rather than the demand.

The Goodwin Sands as a fishing ground and a controversy

The sands are productive ground and they are also a graveyard, and both facts feed into a recurring local argument about dredging them for aggregate.

Objections have been raised on three grounds: the protection of wrecks, including those with war graves; the effect on the fishing ground itself; and the possibility that removing material affects wave energy reaching the coast behind. Proposals have been contested vigorously each time they have appeared.

Fishermen’s interest in that argument is direct rather than sentimental. A dredged bank is a changed seabed, and a changed seabed is a changed catch.

Safety, which is the part that never changes

Commercial fishing remains among the most dangerous occupations in the country, and small inshore boats carry the highest risk per head.

The hazards are stable and well documented: working alone on deck, gear under load, stability affected by catch and weather, and cold water immersion. Requirements around lifejackets, vessel stability assessment and safety training have tightened, and the fatality figures have improved as a result without becoming acceptable.

The lifeboat station is not a heritage feature. It is operational, crewed by volunteers, and the relationship between a small fishing community and its lifeboat has little to do with the sentimental version that appears on tea towels.

Bass, and the rule that annoyed everybody

One regulatory episode illustrates the inshore sector’s position better than any general argument.

Sea bass stocks in the Channel and southern North Sea fell sharply, and emergency restrictions were introduced. The measures limited commercial catch severely and also restricted recreational angling, at points to catch and release only.

Both constituencies objected, for opposite reasons. Commercial inshore skippers pointed out that bass had become a significant part of a small boat’s income precisely because other species were constrained, and that the restriction fell hardest on the vessels with the least capacity to switch. Anglers pointed out that recreational fishing supported local businesses and took a fraction of the tonnage.

The stock position was real and the measures were defensible. What the episode showed is that the inshore fleet is regulated by rules designed with the whole fishery in mind, and that a boat working out of Ramsgate has almost no influence over them.

Shellfish, and the quieter half of the trade

Whelks, crab and lobster do not appear in discussions about quota because they are managed differently, and for parts of the fleet they are the more reliable income.

Potting is a different operation from trawling or netting: gear is set and left, checked on a cycle, and the catch is landed alive, which raises the value and the risk. A held consignment that cannot travel loses its value quickly.

Much of that trade is export, and much of it goes to markets where the price is a multiple of the local one. It is also the part of the trade most exposed to paperwork, transport delay and any disruption at a port, because a live consignment cannot wait for an administrative problem to resolve.

Offshore wind, and the other use of the quay

The growth industry at the harbour is not fishing. Offshore wind farms in the Thames estuary and off the north Kent coast need crew transfer, maintenance and support vessels, and Ramsgate has the berths and the position for it.

For the fishing fleet that is a mixed development. It brings activity, employment and a reason to maintain the harbour, which matters when the dredging bill falls due. It also brings competition for berth space and for skilled crew, and the wind farms themselves occupy sea area that was previously fished.

Coexistence is workable and it is negotiated rather than automatic. Cable routes, safety zones and survey work all constrain where gear can be set, and the arrangements for that are agreed between operators and fishing representatives rather than imposed.

What would help

Three things come up consistently from within the industry, and they are worth recording plainly.

A larger inshore share of national quota, on the argument that the fleet with the smallest environmental footprint and the greatest local employment per tonne holds the smallest allocation.

Investment in the shore-side services that a fleet needs, on the reasoning that these are the infrastructure the boats cannot individually provide and the absence of which drives the accelerating decline described above.

And route to market: help with direct selling, local processing, and reducing the administrative cost of small export consignments.

None of that is within the gift of a district council, which is why the harbour’s owner can maintain the quay and still not affect the trade that uses it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Ramsgate still a working fishing port?

Yes, with a small inshore fleet of mostly under-ten-metre day boats, alongside the marina and marine services use of the harbour.

Why does the under-ten-metre size matter?

Because vessels under that length sit in a different part of the quota system, fishing a shared pool rather than holding individual allocations, and the inshore sector’s share of national quota is small relative to the number of boats in it.

Can I buy fish directly from the boats?

Direct sale from the quay and to local outlets happens and keeps more value with the boat, but it depends on individual operators having somebody available to do the selling.

Why is the harbour called a royal harbour?

The designation followed George IV sheltering there. It is the only harbour in the country with that title, and the harbour itself was built as a refuge because of the Goodwin Sands.

Why do fishermen object to dredging the Goodwin Sands?

Because it changes the seabed, and a changed seabed changes the catch. Objections have also been raised over wreck protection and the effect on wave energy reaching the coast.

What single change would make most difference?

Within the industry the answer given most consistently is a larger inshore share of quota, followed by investment in the shore-side services that a small fleet cannot provide for itself.