Comparable in size but differing completely in design are two deep-sea trawlers built at the Kwong Lee Cheung Shipyard in Kowloon. These are sister ships, 86 feet long, and the first ones of their size that faithfully followed the modern specifications laid down by Mr. Cheung and the Fisheries Department. They were the first big trawlers constructed according to written plans and framed around modern templates or patterns in Hong Kong. As they neared completion late in 1961, the twin wooden trawlers of 100 tons each looked more like dismasted clipper ships than junks. The old type of high poop had been cut down and crew quarters moved forward. The fat, bulging stern had been slimmed down to improve the streamline, and the traditional rudder-slot was gone. The deck was level and uncluttered, with far more working space than older junks provided. The outline of the hull was slim and graceful, giving more longitudinal stability than the tub-bottomed junk. The free-swinging tiller and massive wooden rudder had been replaced by a ship’s wheel and a much smaller rudder of steel that turned on a metal shaft. Powered winches would be welded to their decks. Mechanized and streamlined, the new trawlers could deliver more speed than a motorized trawler of conventional shape, and require less fuel to do it. When the two partners who had ordered the trawlers, fishermen Lee Loy Shing and Cheng Chung Kay, smilingly greeted visitors to the yard, pointing out the features of their new ships with considerable pride, it was evident that they regarded the old-style junk as an expensive antique. Mechanization has already proved itself; although mechanized boats number less than half the fishing fleet, they take 80 percent of the catch. Many fishermen are beginning to believe that modern ship design is as important to the future of Hong Kong’s fishing fleet as mechanization. Steel-hulled trawlers of the Japanese “bull” type are already being used by the fishing companies in the colony. One dozen of them operate in the Gulf of Tong King, near Hainan Island. However, they are much too costly for most fishing families. Colony fishing methods are as varied as the boats used. The deep-sea trawlers, generally working in pairs, drag a huge bag-shaped net along the sea bottom, gathering in horsehead and red snapper, or red goatfish and golden thread. Purse-seiners, working in pairs and fairly close to shore, stretch a big net between them at night and use a bright light to lure such smaller fish as anchovies and carangoid into the net. The Pa T’eng seiners set gill nets along the bottom for yellow croaker, and drift nets for white pomfret and mackerel. Other types include gill-netters, shrimp beam-trawlers, and three smaller classes of long-liners. About twenty kinds of fish form most of the catch, and among these are conger pike, big eyes, grouper, young barracuda and red sea bream.