[See WELL sb.1 6 b.]
1. A fishing-boat provided with a well or tank for the storage and transport of live fish.
c. 1600. [see TODE sb.1].
1614. Gentleman, Engl. Way to win Wealth, 19. And these be Pinks and Wel-boats of the burthen of fourty Tunnes.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., xxx. 121. Others … get their living by selling fish alive, which to that purpose they keep in great well-boats.
1769. Pennant, Brit. Zool., III. 301. They [carp] are there a great article of commerce, and sent in well-boats to Sweden and Russia.
1800. Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, xv. 433. Fish wasting in Well-boats at Gravesend.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 211. Severn Fisheries Board…. Model of Trunk or Well Boat.
† 2. A flat-bottomed boat for landing troops and stores. Obs.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 482. The 40 well boates built at Deptford, which carry about 20 or 30 oars each, to land men in shoal water.
1693. MSS. Ho. of Lords (N. S.), I. 187. An able seaman to take charge of the well-boats at Portsmouth and the stores to be put on board them.
1693. Lond. Gaz., No. 2926/3. Three of the Bomb Ships, with the Brigantines and Well Boats went in and Anchored within half a Mile of the Town.
