CraftSeptember 2, 2026 · 4 min read

Mending Nets, Keeping a Coastline Alive

A small workshop restores the nets of a fading fleet, one knot at a time, so the boats — and the people — keep going.

Mended fishing nets hung to dry along a wooden pier

By Desmond Clay · Contributing writer

There were three net menders on this coast in 1990 and none by 2019. A new net costs more than a month's catch, so boats that tore one simply stopped going out.

Fenna de Vries learned the knots from a recording of her grandfather's hands. She opened a workshop above the chandlery with two apprentices and a waiting list she did not expect.

The workshop has repaired 190 nets in two years and, more quietly, kept eleven boats working.

Her apprentices are nineteen and twenty-two. "That's the part that matters," she says. "The nets are just rope."

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