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BARBARA E. WARD
around 12 (range 6 to 12), compared with the small liner's 5. By 1970 the picture had changed not at all for the small-liners, but the purse-seiners were no longer working in pairs. Each operating purse-seiner crew now averaged about 9.5 members only (range 7 to 16).
The existence of very wide ranges of difference between different boats of the same type should suffice to draw attention to the fact that the averages given here are no more than arithmetical figures. It is especially important that this should be clearly understood in connection with the number of able-bodied crew members. Because these are essentially family crews, their actual numbers are intrinsically likely to vary quite widely, especially if, as here, all children upwards of 10 years old are included. The decision to include them is defended later in this chapter, but it does raise certain problems for economic analysis. In particular, also, it makes it imperative that the reader should beware of confusing either average or actual figures with any kind of optimal numbers. Some of these issues appear again in the section on boat's masters, below, and in Chapter 8.45
Nevertheless, certain implications for the kinds of family structure likely to be found on different types of fishing boat do follow from the broad average figures just given. It is clear that small long-liners required smaller working crews than purse-seiners. This made it possible for the small liners in Kau Sai to operate with smaller scale family groups on board. In fact, of the 17 small liners based on Kau Sai in 1953, 11 housed nuclear family units, 4 were occupied by stem families (i.e., father, mother, one married son and his wife, with or without the unmarried children of both couples) and 2 by families comprising two or more adult brothers with their wives and children.
Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half the purse-seiners, regarded as single boats, also housed simple, nuclear families. There were 15 of these. Of the others, 14 contained extended 3 generation families comprising a man and his wife (wives) together with one or more married sons and their wives and children as well as their own unmarried children, and 8 were occupied by groups in which adult brothers, their wives and children were living