What are the pill sharks?

Answer 1

THE BRISTOL CHANNEL, with its treacherous shifting quicksands and huge tides which rise as high as 45 feet in places, is a dangerous water through which to navigate. In the days when the great sailing ships used to return from their long voyages heavily laden with tobac­co, sugar, silks and spices, skilled pilots were needed to guide them through the perilous waters into the port of Bristol.

Only the local pilots knew the safe routes to the mouth of the Avon and the villages of Portishead and Pill produced the best. In the busy King Road anchorage just off Avonmouth, sailing ships would wait for a high tide and a suitable wind to carrv them down the Channel and out into the Atlantic Ocean. The pilots' boats would mingle among them and when a merchant ship was spotted heading in they would race each other down the Channel. Whoever was the fastest got the job. At high tide pilots would guide the great ships as far as Pill, where the crew would be `paid off' and the ship would continue the journey up the Avon to the port of Bristol, either rowed by special tugboats or towed by a team of horses on the riverside tow path.

There was great rivalry between the pilots of Portishead and Pill and it was not always friendly. The Portishead men were known as the `Wreckers' and they had no reason to feel piqued at their nickname. In the past many had been guilty of wrecking and looting and on one occasion they were even known to have been helped by the local clergy. Portishead stands on a rocky outcrop just before the land flattens out at the mouth of the river Avon. The practice of the wreckers was to light fires on the shore between the rocky headlands or to `black out' one of the official lights in order to confuse an unwitting ship into coming in too close to the shore. They would wait callously for a ship to sink, then swoop on the wreckage and its survivors.

As it was against the law to take salvage if anyone from a wrecked ship was still alive, that law virtually condemned any survivors to death. On rare occasions the wreckers reaped a rich harvest and the whole town was involved in sharing the spoils, but because of the nature of the Portishead coastline most attempts failed. Many a time an unsuspecting ship would falter and sink in the deadly off-shore quicksands and both crew and cargo would be lost.

When being taunted by their rivals as `wreckers', the Portishead men would reply derisively by calling the Pill men `sharks'. The latter had acquired this name many years before after a particular incident during a time when there was a great shortage of food in the Severnside area. One day the pilots received news that two merchant ships were due in from the West Indies and the rival boats raced down the Channel as far as the Isle of Lundy to see who could win the prize. The Pill pilot reached the larger vessel first but, to the amazement of the Portis­head team, seemed to falter and dropped behind the ship thus allowing them to claim the piloting fee.

The Pill boat then seemed to disappear behind the smaller ship too, before eventually taking it in tow. After a hard journey up the Bristol Channel, the Portishead men were pleased with themselves as they brought the West Indiaman safely into Pill where horse teams were ready to tow it to the Bristol quays. They stayed behind for a while to mock the Pill pilots when they arrived for their clumsiness at sea in losing the bigger prize. Still laughing, the men returned to Portis­head, but although they had been well paid they still had to face empty larders when they got home.

The next day when the women of Portishead met the women from Pill it was they who were the object of derision. The wives of Pill took much delight in telling them that the previous night the whole town had been feasting on roast pork and plenty of it! `Couldn't you smell it up in Portishead, then?' they jeered. The citizens of Pill had indeed dined on pork, a little salt,,, perhaps but none the worse for that. It was from the pig carcasses which had been towed behind both the merchant ships as shark bait while they were far out at sea. The captains had forgotten about them but the wily Pill pilots had collected the meat from both ships, a `prize' which they regarded as far more important than the larger piloting fee!

When the wives returned to Portishead and told their husbands the story they were furious and from that day called their rivals 'Sharks'

Answer 2

Pill sharks are small deep-sea sharks with elongated bodies and specialized teeth for crushing shellfish. They are part of the Hexanchidae family and are often found in deep waters around the world. Pill sharks primarily feed on crustaceans, mollusks, and other small prey.