The rich fishing grounds near Iceland, despite the often inclement weather, have always exerted an unprecedented attraction for fishermen around the North Sea, especially for cod fishing. Ever since the 18th, but especially from the 19th century, northern French and Belgian fishermen left their shabby life along the coast and moved northward, they were called "Icelanders". Their boats, the so-called "goelettes", were sturdy built but mostly poorly maintained and even rickety sailing ships, about 25 to 30 m long. Everything on these ships was primitive, there were hardly any means of navigation, a barometer was a luxury and the lighting of the ship sometimes consisted of a single petroleum lamp high in the mast. The ships sailed in April and after six months, in September, returned to the home port, during all these months only one or two times an Icelandic port was sought to stock up on drinking water and provisions. The volatile Icelandic weather troubled the ships with icy storms in the spring and prolonged wind stops in the summer. The crew usually consisted of 15 to 20 men, most of whom were fishermen. Fishing was by hand for cod, with lines of 75 m length and this, with short interruptions, up to twenty hours a day. The shelters were cold and damp, little care was given to the food, there was always a pot in the kitchen simmering a thick soup with fish heads or sometimes some bacon that everyone could use. To keep up the courage crew had the right to 25 cl of alcohol per day, the so-called "eau-de-vie" with an alcohol percentage of 46 °, this, supplemented with the stock that they bought themselves, made alcoholism a common phenomenon was on the ships, but also many other ailments such as scurvy, fractures and pneumonia kept ugly home among the crew. The fish was salted and stored in wooden barrels. The payment was made according to the number of tons that were unloaded upon returning home. For the fishermen themselves, this was also possible according to the number of fish caught. Why these fishermen submitted to this harsh life can be guessed: they earned two to three times the wages of a farm worker in the six months at sea. But the toll on lives was high: In 1888 no fewer than 19 ships with man and mouse perished. Between 1870 and 1899, 643 Belgian Icelanders remained at sea forever. At the beginning of the last century, with the rise of steam, these sailing ships disappeared to be replaced by steam loggers and later dieselships. From then on, fishing was done with trawl nets, the fish were kept on ice and several trips, of three weeks each, were made per season. Life on these ships was still hard, but a drastic improvement compared to the past. Since the 1970s in particular, Iceland has expanded its fishing waters several times, so that these journeys are no longer worthwhile. The last Belgian modern fishing boat, the "Amandine", made its last voyage to these waters in the early 1990s and is today set up as a museum on dry land, in Ostend, as a tribute to the Icelanders.