Pots, markers - are there regs and who 'should' enforce?

concentrik

concentrik

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Although I've just spent twenty minutes or so searching the forums I haven't managed to find out:

Are there any regs covering pot marking, either directly or otherwise?

If there are who is supposed to enforce them?

I don't have a problem with pots, just ones without flags!

I already understand that there's no hope of recovering any losses from pot owners after running down an invisible one - just wondered about the 'rules'...
 
I took this subject up with my MP four or five years ago after getting caught on the ropes from pot markers three or four times in a couple of years. In strong tides or a night you don't have a chance of seeing them. I likened the situation to allowing someone to dig a hole in a public road without insisting on proper warning signs and barriers. He referred my letter to the Sea Fisheries Committee which is part of DEFRA or something similar and their response was useless platitudes.
My conclusion was that fishermen can do what they like however inconvenient and dangerous to other sea users.
 
Fishermen are like taxi drivers. Both do a professional job so for some reason seem to think they own the sea's & roads . The only guidance I recall is that they
are told not to sink pots in fairways & harbour entrances. But even that does not seem to apply down here.

Want to sail coastal Spain & Portugal 2013? Your going to love it then :D Watch out for pot markers that are the size of tennis balls and nets slung between two small buoys.
Go round & not through :D

Must be my biggest worry when night sailing. Had two scrape down the side last year.
 
concentrik said:
Although I've just spent twenty minutes or so searching the forums I haven't managed to find out:

Are there any regs covering pot marking, either directly or otherwise?

If there are who is supposed to enforce them?

I don't have a problem with pots, just ones without flags!

I already understand that there's no hope of recovering any losses from pot owners after running down an invisible one - just wondered about the 'rules'...
Click to expand...

No overall rules or law. A hotch potch of local regulations, usually a harbour byelaw but limited enforcement.

Just accept that they are there, avoid them if you can and fit a good ropecutter.
 
We have a similar problem in Oz. Pots have white market buoys, about 2/300mm in diam, except craypots off Tasmania which are three floats, maybe 3/400mm one red, one green and one white. Pots seem to be laid like mine fields. But personally I find the whole thing odd. The fishermen drop the pot (which costs them, time and actual pot cost), the filling of the pot is income (so a bit more money). We come along and get the line wrapped round something (in our case the gap between top of rudder and hull, if it were the prop slightly more anguish). We then cut the line and they lose pot and whatever was in the pot - and all because they could not be bothered to put a pole with a flag on the pot. And to add insult to injury - there is always the suggestion that the life of a fishermen is just above breadline and they deserve sympathy. Frankly if they are on the breadline its because they lack basic intelligence - a marker pole with a flag is not difficult, costs peanuts, would save them and might engender a bit of sympathy and support. With LEDs - a flashing light would cost nothing.

Its not about regulation, its ought to be simply economics, theirs. Maybe its something the marine leisure industry should address with the fishing industries (rather than bureaucracy).

Jonathan
 
DEFRA/Fisheries had recommendations for the marking of pots deep within their website but I can't find it at the moment. IIRC it was only a recommendation so carried little weight. It's very rare that you see markings in accordance with the advice.
 
I put this very question to a fisherman recently and was somewhat surprised by the answer.

First, he said, the law only requires you to put sticks on nets, not on pots.

Second, he said, they don't like using sticks or brightly coloured markers because it makes it too easy for other fishermen to spot the gear and nick their lobsters or whatever.

Not saying he is right, but that's what he believed.

Seems like there are problems of ill-understood regulations, lack of regulation consistency, education and enforcement.
 
Neeves said:
a marker pole with a flag is not difficult, costs peanuts, would save them and might engender a bit of sympathy and support. With LEDs - a flashing light would cost nothing.



Jonathan
Click to expand...

We collected a pot marker around the rudder off St Vaast one night last summer. It had a wonderful strobe light on a decent sized 2 metre pole and during the twenty minutes it took to disentangle I was able to have a good look at it. Must have cost a few pounds, so we carefully re-tied the line which we had to cut to get free, and were able to deposit the whole thing back where it came from.
So how on earth did we get tangled with it in the first place?? Exactly what I asked the helm on watch at the time......he did foredeck duty for the rest of the weekend.
 
Resolution said:
We collected a pot marker around the rudder off St Vaast one night last summer. It had a wonderful strobe light on a decent sized 2 metre pole and during the twenty minutes it took to disentangle I was able to have a good look at it. Must have cost a few pounds, so we carefully re-tied the line which we had to cut to get free, and were able to deposit the whole thing back where it came from.
So how on earth did we get tangled with it in the first place?? Exactly what I asked the helm on watch at the time......he did foredeck duty for the rest of the weekend.
Click to expand...

Surprised you didn't keel-haul him :D
 
Be aware if lifting a pot!
On a courtesy trip onboard a MAFF patrol vessel the crew demonstrated why kevlar gloves are essential; many illicit pots had razor blades and carpet tacks entwined through the securing rope!
That is simply not nice.
 
Sandyman said:
Want to sail coastal Spain & Portugal 2013? Your going to love it then :D Watch out for pot markers that are the size of tennis balls and nets slung between two small buoys. Go round & not through :D
Click to expand...

In 7 years sailing Portuguese and SW Spanish waters, I've yet to see a surface net set on marker buoys, most if not all, are bottom weighted so we always go between the danbuoys, which are paired, each pair usualy having different coloured flages. Unlike the UK, it's very rare to find a long floating pickup line.
 
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