Dogger (boat)

The dogger (Dutch pronunciation: [dɔɣər]) was a group of similar fishing boats, described as early as the fourteenth century, that commonly operated in the North Sea. Early examples were single-masted: by the seventeenth century, two-masted doggers were common. They were largely used for fishing for cod by rod and line. Cod is now called kabeljauw in Dutch, but in that era, the name dogge or doggevis was more common. Dutch boats were ubiquitous in the North Sea, and the word dogger was given to the rich fishing grounds where they often fished, which became known as the Dogger Bank. The sea area in turn gave its name to the later design of boat that commonly fished that area, and so became associated with this specific design rather than the generic Dutch trawlers.