What the heck is a hobbler?
If you don’t know, you are not alone. I was listening to a radio commentary a few days back, and the host was listing some jobs that have gone away in the modern age.
He said there were no more hobblers. He should have stopped there. However, he went on to define a hobbler as a guy who pulled boats up shallow streams and such before there were canals.
That is not a hobbler.
He was almost right, but it’s a decent example why one can’t believe everything one hears or reads (except my stuff).
The original hobblers were old Irish skiff men. Back in the days before harbors, sailing ships had a tough time coming close to shore to off-load cargo. Hobblers would row out to the ship and tow them into a safe anchorage in one of the natural harbors the pepper the Irish coast.
There was big money in that endeavor for these early pilots. There were generally four men at the oars of heavy plank skiffs, called hobbler skiffs. Hobblers would race out to an incoming ship determined to be the first one there and get a rope on deck. A ship that was guided in safely meant a month’s wages for the successful pilot and crew.
This was in the 1700s. The competition was not necessarily cordial.
Hobblers had a dangerous career. The weather on the Irish coast is not benign. Many men were lost to the seas.
A half-dozen families constituted the bulk of the hobblers in the Dublin district of Ireland. Those families, who still live there today, have been honored with a monument commemorating the lost lives of the hard men who plied the piloting trade.
Hobblers diversified by running liquor and sailors who wished to jump ship. There is some evidence a few of them delivered “impressed” seamen to ships when there was a need.
Hobblers began to decline by the late 1800s due to the influx of steam and motor engines. Canals were coming into existence about the time the rowing trade was declining, and a number of hobblers switched to pulling boats through the locks by hand. Tough guys. That opportunity soon passed as horses came into use — and again, those darn motor engines.
Hobblers resorted to having rowing races for fun, and those races are still around in Ireland. The weights of the skiff are monitored, among other requirements. The racing skiffs are not as heavy as the old hand-hewed plank boats of yesteryear, but the rowing is quite impressive.
One needs to take care when researching on the internet, especially when one is dealing with outdoors topics. Much of the information is provided by those who have minimal personal knowledge. You may read that a hobble was a light infantry horseman in the Middle Ages. That is a Hobelar.
One may also read “hobbler” as one who hobbles horses. Don’t do disservice to those hard old dudes who braved the Irish Sea in a heavy, somewhat seaworthy, plank skiffs. Imagine four guys hand-launching a 1,000-pound skiff from a rocky beach in six- to 10-foot seas. Remember — this was in the days before life jackets.
When you consider this piloting trade of old, simply towing a boat up a canal by hand seems a little tame.
Soon we will begin to see trucks hauling pleasure boats toward Homer, Seward and Valdez. Spring is not far away. Soon people will be backing their boats down a ramp and into a calm harbor. The next time you are struggling through the Valdez Narrows with seas two points abaft and 400 horsepower at your disposal, consider the hobblers of old. We don’t grow men as tough as they used to be.
John Schandelmeier is a lifelong Alaskan who lives near Paxson with his family. He is a Bristol Bay commercial fisherman and a two-time winner of the Yukon Quest.
An earlier version of this story misidentified the sea bordering Ireland.