Fishing nets catching a yacht Rudder

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BurnitBlue

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Just been reading a blog (Strummer) where in a following wind they were brought to a dead stop on the way to Panama. The net trapped between propeller or rudder so fast the crew had to wait for a fisherman to get released. Sea too rough for diving.

I am aware of this possibility but I wonder how many times this actually happens. Google such events bring up a wire strung between the bottom of the keel to the bottom of the rudder.

My questions. Is this event common and are they all rope which can be cut or is the surface line a steel cable.

Thanks.
 
Boat in the yard some years ago, had got stuck on one of the tuna nets in Gib Straits IIRC at night. Wire hawser between keel and rudder and took quite a while to release him by slackening net somehow. Very lucky it hadn't sawed through the hull. He was billed large amount but trying to avoid payment last I heard, saying the end of the net wasn't properly marked. We've always found them easy to spot.
 
BurnitBlue said:
Just been reading a blog (Strummer) where in a following wind they were brought to a dead stop on the way to Panama. The net trapped between propeller or rudder so fast the crew had to wait for a fisherman to get released. Sea too rough for diving.

I am aware of this possibility but I wonder how many times this actually happens. Google such events bring up a wire strung between the bottom of the keel to the bottom of the rudder.

My questions. Is this event common and are they all rope which can be cut or is the surface line a steel cable.

Thanks.
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Not massively common but certainly happens long distance. I can think of 2 boats I hung around with had it happen, no option but to get down there and cut when you're on your own. Over the stern with a snorkel in a big swell - scary!!

Love my transom hung rudder, more than once mid ocean seen a basketball pitch sized mess of nets and floats disappearing to stern having just run over the top. Cross ocean highly likely you will as well , loads of floating rubbish out there and even on a crewed boat you just won't spot them on a dark night into the third week on passage..
 
Just one of many hazards you may encounter (or not). The wire from the keel only works if you have a skeg that goes below the rudder and even then may not work in practice because of the big gap between it and the hull. Long keel with attached rudder potentially most secure, but as I know from direct experience if you do pick up a bit of net in the aperture you can lose rudder control as well as jam the prop.

My current boat has a swept back spade rudder and I have gone over a net and it just slid past. Vulnerable point here is the narrow gap between the top of the rudder and the hull.

So, the first defence is avoidance, not always easy, and fitting a proper rope cutter to your stern gear so that you stand a fighting chance of chopping anything that gets caught round the shaft and prop.
 
Happened to us 1970s sailing Majorca to Minorca, southerly 105, night watch had her sailing nicely in light breeze, but no wake, they thought log impeller faulty at zero.
Looked over stern, Held dead stop by massive net in a swell. Breadknife with wrist line deployed from transom ladder to cut most off prop, eased more off transom rudder by lifting it and then sailed onto anchor on arrival Minorca and then dived to remove remainder from prop. I didn't fancy diving with a swell, in the dark!
 
We’ve been caught in South Britanny with a mile long line of bouys a 100m apart. When we tried to pass between them the boat slowed and we’d created a huge Vee in the line of bouys - no fishing boats in sight. That time it was the keel and we backed the main to reverse out without starting the engine.

Another time we were motoring in Feb in the Med and the engine stopped - that took an hour of cutting a net away from the prop. I had no wetsuit and mid winter and 3km deep it was very cold.
 
Has happened to me i the Solent. A late season sail out to Priory Bay, and as I came inshore discovered the hard way a net right across off the beach about 200m out. Completely unmarked except a small float at each end! Ended up with the net twice round the keels (bilge keeler,), rudder and the prop just a huge mass of net. Half an hour over the side trying unsuccesfully to cut myself free, and I was becoming cold and tired, so called Solent CG, who sent Bembridge IRB to help me.

The IRB crew cut the net each side of me, then towed me into shallow water where they could put two of their men over the side to clear the rest of it. Still took the about 20 minutes with their heavy duty croppers. The RNLI boys were highly - er - professional in their comments about the idiot who had laid the net!

Throughly unpleasant start to a weeks cruise, only rewarded the next morning by seeing an unmarked fishing boat retrieving what remained of the net. I reported the incident to CHIRP along with the name of the boat and where it had come from. How daft can you get, laying an unmarked net like that across a popular anchorage!
 
Where I sail its shark nets you have to be careful of running over

620x349
 
Thanks for the replies. Seems to be a very serious problem. Considering how yachts carry such safety oriented things as bolt cutters for the rigging, life-rafts for sinking, Personal lifejackets and beacons, bilge pumps, flares, etc etc. There seems no equipment to deal with a net. I was thinking of a gardeners tree trimmer (saw on a long pole) This would be useless against a steel-cable, hence my question.

Tranona has made the correct read of my attitude to danger on earlier posts. I distrust most things because I am a control freak. I am more afraid of the continual worry during a long passage about imagined dangers than facing the danger itself. Worry can ruin an ocean passage quicker than sea-sickness.

Oh well, time to now seriously consider swapping my boat (Moody 34/346) to one on my bucket list.

Nicholson 32, Twister, Elizabethan 31, or any similar transom rudder, full keel yacht, here I come. Huge money loss but it IS only money. Ten years of worry free sailing and in as much control of my destiny that I can foresee will (may) be worth it in the long run.

Any suggestions of additions to the above list. I reckon 35 feet is the max I can afford.

Thanks again
 
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BurnitBlue said:
Thanks for the replies. Seems to be a very serious problem. Considering how yachts carry such safety oriented things as bolt cutters for the rigging, life-rafts for sinking, Personal lifejackets and beacons, bilge pumps, flares, etc etc. There seems no equipment to deal with a net. I was thinking of a gardeners tree trimmer (saw on a long pole) This would be useless against a steel-cable, hence my question.

Tranona has made the correct read of my attitude to danger on earlier posts. I distrust most things because I am a control freak. I am more afraid of the continual worry during a long passage about imagined dangers than facing the danger itself. Worry can ruin an ocean passage quicker than sea-sickness.

Oh well, time to now seriously consider swapping my boat (Moody 34/346) to one on my bucket list.

Nicholson 32, Twister, Elizabethan 31, or any similar transom rudder, full keel yacht, here I come. Huge money loss but it IS only money. Ten years of worry free sailing and in as much control of my destiny that I can foresee will (may) be worth it in the long run.

Any suggestions of additions to the above list. I reckon 35 feet is the max I can afford.

Thanks again
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So you are increasing the likelihood of getting your boat caught (as passage times will be longer) but decreasing the hassle of untangling yourself when you do. We all make our own judgements and if that is the style of boat you want anyway then fine..

On your point about equipment - that’s what a wetsuit and brew knife are for although and of course cutters on the propshaft.
 
Tranona said:
Just one of many hazards you may encounter (or not). The wire from the keel only works if you have a skeg that goes below the rudder and even then may not work in practice because of the big gap between it and the hull. Long keel with attached rudder potentially most secure, but as I know from direct experience if you do pick up a bit of net in the aperture you can lose rudder control as well as jam the prop.
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After a nasty experience off Mull last year I have just had a stainless tang fitted from the back of the (long) keel to under the rudder. It's not infallible, but it should significantly reduce the chances of anything sliding up the gap. Of course if the net gets sucked into the prop aperture sideways the tang won't help at all.
 
Note quite as serious but many years ago I caught drift net across channel down tide from Cardiff with inadequate marking on buoys both ends, while I tried motoring up against the tide from Barry.

No wire rope just netting so hacked it away with knife, and I had lifting rudder and was using outboard so could get most of it clear of water. The presumed fishing boat was some miles away and never came over, and though I hate damaging another mans means of earning, why oh why did they think a drift net should be placed across shipping lane
 
BurnitBlue said:
Thanks for the replies. Seems to be a very serious problem. Considering how yachts carry such safety oriented things as bolt cutters for the rigging, life-rafts for sinking, Personal lifejackets and beacons, bilge pumps, flares, etc etc. There seems no equipment to deal with a net. I was thinking of a gardeners tree trimmer (saw on a long pole) This would be useless against a steel-cable, hence my question.

Tranona has made the correct read of my attitude to danger on earlier posts. I distrust most things because I am a control freak. I am more afraid of the continual worry during a long passage about imagined dangers than facing the danger itself. Worry can ruin an ocean passage quicker than sea-sickness.

Oh well, time to now seriously consider swapping my boat (Moody 34/346) to one on my bucket list.

Nicholson 32, Twister, Elizabethan 31, or any similar transom rudder, full keel yacht, here I come. Huge money loss but it IS only money. Ten years of worry free sailing and in as much control of my destiny that I can foresee will (may) be worth it in the long run.

Any suggestions of additions to the above list. I reckon 35 feet is the max I can afford.

Thanks again
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If you really think you are "safer" in that type of boat then you are right - it is all in your mind and not supported by any serious evidence. The vast majority of long distance sailors do not use that type of boat, although some do because that is what was used by the early pioneers - why? because that is what was available, not because it was best for the job. It was though for the time because there was little alternative.

Very few people think that way now and few boats of that type have been built in the last 30 years as people have discovered that other designs do the job better so fin and particularly fin and skeg have dominated the ocean cruising scene for years. are all these people really in danger or don't know what they are doing?

As I and others have said a long keel and attached rudder type does not solve the potential (but rare) problem and indeed introduces others, particularly the danger of getting rope or nets around the prop. You may like to know that the person who "invented" the rope cutter that works did it after being disabled in Biscay with net caught in the prop of - you guessed it - his long keel heavy displacement boat.

Plenty of people have circumnavigated in boats like your Moody - talk to capnsensible on here for example and it would seem strange to go back to a less suitable boat just because in your mind you see "problems" that are not really there.

However if you do want to go down this route avoid the old 60/70s (really 1950s designed for wood) boats with their narrow beams, small rigs etc and perhaps look at a more modern interpretation such as one of the many Tradewind 35s that are for sale at comparable values to your Moody.
 
Long handled pruning loppers - preferably with a serrated edge on the outside of one of the blades - seem a good idea.

I was looking for an illustration of my loppers ( ooh Matron ! ) but this looks like it may be better;

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Extendable...1741350&sr=8-21&keywords=long+pruning+loppers

I would be EXTREMELY wary of going over the side to try and cut things free, better to call the Coastguard - as in Old Harry's case this is not only much safer, it alerts authorities to just how dangerous these things are and may even get the culprits sorted out.
 
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Graham376 said:
Funnily enough I found a spurs rope cutter wouldn't cut a net.
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That is why it is not the most popular cutter on the market> It has many limitations, one of which is the inability to cut nets - in fact often drawing them in.

Remember vividly in my boat show days customers bringing in boxes full of chewed up net cut with their stripper. Not infallible - nothing is but works most of the time. I know it would have made mincemeat of the net I picked up if I had fitted one. Actually it was physically impossible as in many long keel boats with small apertures, but I rectified that when I redesigned the rudder.
 
BurnitBlue said:
Seems to be a very serious problem.
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Do you have any evidenced to support that statement?

It happens occasionally across the entire planet. In the last 35 years I've known one boat get tangled in a net. Pretty sure nobody collects any data.

Just carry an old bread knife and your bolt cutters you do carry both; just in case the standing rigging gives way. A far more serious and frequent event.
 
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