Lobster pot paranoia part 2

[cagey]

Thankyou everyone for your replies,interesting and informative. My next question please has anyone got any idea how to make a means of deflecting rope etc from the vulnerable areas, every idea I've come up with has an equal ability to catch what I'm trying to avoid.
Thanks
K

 

[Neil_Y]

Workboats have been trying for years but in reality if you have a route for the water you have a route for ropes and other rubbish to get to the prop. Even cages and nozzles still have problems.

From a sailors perspective (and having had the problem myself) if there is any wind at all you can sail without the engine to where ever you are going or to where you can sort it. If you are hooked up so badly you are stuck then the bread knife on a boat hook works.

But a rope cutter can help.

 

[Tranona]

No. Nothing is 100% effective. The reality is that if the engine is running water is inevitably sucked into the area of the propeller. Some boats are more vulnerable than others. while you might be able to deal with a single pot rope with a serrated knife on a pole, if there is anything of a sea running it is quite a challenge. however, single pot lines are only one hazard as some of the other posts show and nets, plastic bags etc can disable you and are impossible to access underwater particularly with saildrives or other stern gear that is well under in the middle of the boat. Even worse for some is the damage to stern gear and drives from fouling, and the only solution is a good rope cutter. Not 100% again, but as many can testify, well worth fitting if you regularly sail in areas where fouling is a problem.

 

[ghostlymoron]

Even sailing doesn't always work. We once got hooked up on a string of pots a mile off point lynas anglesey. We were sailing at the time and it stopped us in our tracks. The rope was trapped between rudder and skeg and there was no way we could remove or cut it short of diving on it which we were reluctant to do due to strong tide and F7. We could have waited for slack but decided to call RNLI who also had difficulty freeing us. They cut the rope with a massive cleaved and towed us to Amlech where we retired to the pub to await low water when it was an easy fix.
Spoiled our day though and I, as helmsman, have never been allowed to forget it.

 

[Seajet]

I know a very experienced couple who spent 3 days drifting up & down the English Channel with no wind and fog, after their prop' picked up a huge tarpaulin which welded itself onto the shaft - I've seen their pic of a sub's periscope masts going by a few feet away, oblivious !

This was a long time ago when VHF chat with Coastguards was fairly uncommon, but I have to say I'd have been yelling into the mic' myself...

When the boat was dried out it took ages to cut the plastic sheet off the shaft.

Maybe having a pre-sorted way of clamping the tender outboard onto the transom ladder / sugar scoop might be one idea ?

 

[William_H]

Interesting that small agricultural planes have the same problem in this case with power lines when they fly low as thye do when spraying or dropping fertiliser.
They run a steel wire from the top of the cockpit roof to the top of the fine or rudder whichever protrudes highest. This is intended to deflect the wire over the top. They often have a vertical steel blade mounted right up the middle of the windscreen. There seems to be now way to protect the prop which can probably cut a power wire anyway.
You sometimes see a sharp blade type post extending up and forward from a helicopter cabin windscreen hopefully to cut a power line before it gets to the base of the rotor. Usually with a cutter down ward from the roof to protect.
Back to the real world of boats. If you are that worried then you might consider a deflecting wire from the tip of the keel back to the sked or rudder tip. (in line with the pintles or tube to allow rudder to turn.)
You might imagine a plate screwed into the bottom of the keel with a wire with a shackle onto an eye in the wire attached. The problem is that the fouling rope can get stuck on the screw in to the keel or the shackle or swage. So you make the plate U shaped so that is has sloping sides that protect the protruding parts of the wire. Imagine a piece of channel metal the base having holes for the wire and the attachment. The arms of the channel chamfered from cut away at the front to a point protruding further than the screws and shackle. (or swage) The same at the back end.
As said it is hard to deflect a rope from the prop but this deflecting wire should help. (you will never no of course)
All a bit of work to attach with the boat out of water and access to the bottom of the keel. (and will attract fouling growth) May not be worth it depends on your paranoia. Apparently most people do not think it is worth it. olewill

 

[fisherman]

The main problem with the wire suggestion is if the fouling gets the prop and the wire, then you wind the wire up very tight and something will give. Maybe a small robust skeg fitted under the prop as a deflector, or a cage round the prop but this presents the same problem as the wire.

 

[Seajet]

If one has an outboard in a well, it both keeps the prop' immersed in waves, and is easily raisable to breadknife off any fouling line...:encouragement:

 

[cagey]

Thanks for all the advice,it seems as I feared nothing is really effective. I tried a rotary cutter a while back and it wasn't really effective. My plan is to install a sharp stainless skeg with nylon flaps to protect gap before rudder but this could make problem worse and then a shaver rope cutter on shaft. I think shaver has multiple opportunities to attack rope whereas the scissor type only get one good go especially with my 28 hp engine running at cruising revs.
Thanks everyone
K

 

[thinwater]

I have a big problem with cutting a rope, loosing gear that represents a man's livelyhood.

1. Avoid them. Often this means not taking a short cut.

2. Dive in and unwind it. Tis means carrying a dry suit or equivalent, which is a basic safety item and should be on board any cold water boat.

3. If you do cut the line, knot it back together when you are finished. Otherwise it is destruction of property.

Are they an enormous pain? Yes. Are some of them placed poorly? Yes. But there is also a market demand for Lobsters and crabs. Yes, I've wound up a few over the years (twin engines and rudders double the odds!), but I have never cut one free without a least tying the line back together.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

I have a big problem with cutting a rope, loosing gear that represents a man's livelyhood.
..................
Are they an enormous pain? Yes. Are some of them placed poorly? Yes. But there is also a market demand for Lobsters and crabs. Yes, I've wound up a few over the years (twin engines and rudders double the odds!), but I have never cut one free without a least tying the line back together.

I take your point. However, if the line was badly marked (or even not marked at all, as sometimes happens) when you get caught, by tying the cut ends and leaving it there you are only perpetuating the hazard for others who follow.

 

[NormanS]

I have a big problem with cutting a rope, loosing gear that represents a man's livelyhood.

1. Avoid them. Often this means not taking a short cut.

2. Dive in and unwind it. Tis means carrying a dry suit or equivalent, which is a basic safety item and should be on board any cold water boat.

3. If you do cut the line, knot it back together when you are finished. Otherwise it is destruction of property.

Are they an enormous pain? Yes. Are some of them placed poorly? Yes. But there is also a market demand for Lobsters and crabs. Yes, I've wound up a few over the years (twin engines and rudders double the odds!), but I have never cut one free without a least tying the line back together.

In this part of the world lobster / prawn etc creels are usually shot in fleets of 10 or 20. They have marker buoys on each end, so that if one end is cut or lost, for whatever reason, the gear can still be retrieved.

 

[thinwater]

^^ And if both end are cut, then 20 are lost.

Poorly market? Yes, sometimes they are assigned black markers, which seem absurd, but there are only so many colors.

This is part of the world we live in, and I will do my best to respect property, whether I agree with the placement or not., I'm not going to say that I have sworn the foulest oaths at fisherman on occasion. I just didn't act on them. From their point of view, recreational sailing is only fluff. It's a valid viewpoint.

 

[Baddox]

Round here there are a lot of "hobby pots" as well as commercial ones. Some are better marked than others, some are set in more considerate places than others.
If someone drops a poorly marked pot in a stupid place that puts others at risk, they deserve to lose it. Commercials tend to take more care in placing and marking their gear.

 

[thinwater]

^^ Nope. That's like hitting a car because it is parked illegally. You're better than that.

I'm not suggesting great effort, only doing what you would appreciate if the gear was yours.

 

[NormanS]

^^ Nope. That's like hitting a car because it is parked illegally. You're better than that.

I'm not suggesting great effort, only doing what you would appreciate if the gear was yours.

There is a duty of care from both sides.

 

[GrahamHR]

There is a duty of care from both sides.

I've never deliberately targeted pot markers and their lines lying just below the surface ( as they do at low water), despite the obvious indifference to the safety of other sea users displayed by the humans that set the pots, very often right in the middle of the only safe navigable route..

I have accidentally caught a few resulting in "ghost" pots. ; I'm more sorry for the lobsters etc caught in the pots than I am for the inconsiderate owners of the gear.

The first time it happened, the props brought up the line, pot along with a steel hawser; severe damage to props and outdrive.

Since then it's only been the lines that have been cleanly sliced through by the razor sharp props.

 

[Len Ingalls]

I welded a piece of SS rod just in front of the rope catching gap of my rudder. It sheds rope down the front of spade rudder & works well. https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4zvkf5fvquwb5d/Rope stop.JPG?dl=0

If you are going to cross a pot buoy.or mass of floating culch, immediately shift to neutral.

Avoid using reverse around floating buoys,etc.

 

[NormanS]

I welded a piece of SS rod just in front of the rope catching gap of my rudder. It sheds rope down the front of spade rudder & works well. https://www.dropbox.com/s/g4zvkf5fvquwb5d/Rope stop.JPG?dl=0

If you are going to cross a pot buoy.or mass of floating culch, immediately shift to neutral.

Avoid using reverse around floating buoys,etc.

That looks like a sensible precaution, when you had such an obvious rope trap.