Black Friday Meaning

[Gerry Zagorski]

Came accross this today, which I never knew and thought was an interesting piece of history… Although there are a lot of other meanings behind Black Friday, did you know there was one related to fishing?

The incident took place in a Scottish fishing village in October of 1881. Seems there was a several week long stretch of foul weather which kept all the fishing boats tied to the docks. On Friday October 18th the weather finally cleared and the sun came out. They thought the storm passed and were anxious to get back out to the sea because this was their livelihood. What they did not know since the forecast came too late, is this was the eye of passing storm and weather would again take a sudden turn for the worst.

The gale winds came back on around noon and the fishing fleet made a break for the harbor. Many of the open deck sail boats struggled in the seas right in sight of their families still ashore that could only watch as boats were smashed to pieces on the rocks. A total of 189 men perished that day.

Here’s a video on it https://youtu.be/oCJ8W8A6y_o?si=BNhRFx-WuoF6YzZo