1) A small vessel.
A small vessel which Peter Heath and others have found difficult to define. It was used along the coast and on the inland waterways: 1543-4 ther is too crayers of xxxvj tonne a pese nowe at the Citie of Yorke and hable to go to the see, and no moo
aither of the said crayers sallyth with vj men ... Truthe is that the watter of Owse is oftens tymes so lowe that the said crayers cannott passe from York to Hull. The early judgements of Hull’s Trinity House contain several informative references, proving that some of these craft were made by the Selby shipwrights: 1599 for going to rig and fetch down a new crayer from Selby, Hull, and were sea-going: 1600 John Read claimed wages against Richard Read, his brother, for a Newcastle voyage in the crayer Diamond. In 1471 a vessel called the Crayer de Delff was recorded in Hull and there were crayers on the Tyne in 1480.