Hans Hasse writes

The fishery research trawler ERNEST HOLT, operated by the British Government's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, was named after Ernest William Lyons Holt or E.W.L. Holt (17 October 1864 – 10 June 1922) who was an eminent English marine naturalist and biologist who specialized in ichthyology, the study of fish. His work helped lay a scientific foundation for the fishery management in Ireland, and together with William Spotswood Green, he strongly influenced the development of the Irish Fisheries in its early years.

The ship ERNEST HOLT was built in 1948 by Cochrane & Sons, Selby as a fishery research trawler for the Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries, and she looks like a commercial Arctic trawler.

Her colours were black hull with white upperworks and funnel being buff with a black top, with an overall length of 193 feet and 175 feet between perpendiculars and breadth 30 feet and draft 16 feet. Her oil-fired triple-expansion engines develop 900 IHP giving her a cruising speed of 11 knots.

In 1971 she was renamed SWITHA and became a British Government fishery patrol vessel and was wrecked on 31 January 1980 off Inchkeith Island in the Firth of Forth