Rope cutters, for or agin?

ccscott49

ccscott49

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Right folks, I'm thinking of rope cutters for the boat. Spurs or similar, what are this learned forum's opinions. Tommy, (paulineB's) boat has just found some net round one of his props. Just wondering as I'm about to slip. Intersted in views. Thanks,
Colin.
 
You have an alterantive which could be better imho: Iangrant has set sail on his transat adventure with a piece of stainless rod running from aft of the keel to the rudder skeg, sort-of isolating his prop from passing nasties such as nets. This seems a v good idea if you have skeg-hung rudder rather than racing/cheapy spade ruddder dangling unsupported - and an at-least-a-bit finned keel.

I had ropecuters on one boat but it reduced top speed a fair bit. So tookem off. Then i slashed my hands with them even tho they were in a bag, so i chucked them away.
 
I've seen the rod/wirerope from keel to rudder skeg, very common on those type of boats, but unfortunately I'm twin screw, so no use for me. Has to be rope cutters or nowt. Shouldn't slow me down much, my props only turn at 500 rpm, max.
 
FWIW, I removed a set of Spur cutters from a Broom I used to own and got an extra 1-2 knots and never experienced any prop fouls either so, personally, I dont bother with them. But for every one peep like me who does'nt think they're worth it, there'll be another who swears by them
Spose it also depends on other factors as well such as whether you are a diver or not and whether you've got one prop or two. Might be tempted to fit them to a single engined boat
 
wel then, i wd spend the money on a bit of scuba gear, which wd likely need anyway if really humunguous ropes get around the prop or heard a kerzunky sort of noise which mite be ropecutters working, or mite not.

Oh, gettem if you must. I am a bit of tightwad tho, see, and can't stand the idea that i might never usem. I must say i am a bit keen for a hole in the boat so i can get full value from the flares and liferaft too...
 
I had a bit of rope around one of my props when she came out in April, I had no idea it was there.

I reckon on a boat like yours there would be very little effect on speed or fuel consumption. If my boat was not a speedy thing I'd have em.

Got your cheque in the post, postage will cost me zilch so can send to boat if you wish.

Ben
 
Thats the thing!! I do have two sets of scuba aboard and can use it. The rope cutters for 2 5/8 shafts have to be specially made and aren't cheap, in fact horrendously expensive, think I'll forget it. Thanks everybody.
 
Would you go under your boat in scuba gear whilst offshore in anything but the calmest of conditions? That said if you've got 2 engines and therefore 2 props I'd play the statistics game and reckon on not getting both snagged at the same time.
 
Being in the rope cutter business, with yachts and smaller engines its not such an important issue as less damage is done when ropes are caught, often it will slow or stop the engine before anything major is done...however....since talking to power boat owners that have been caught, the risk of serious damage seems to be real.

A power boat with several hundred hp can easily pull a P bracket out of the bottom of the boat, or remove the gearbox from the engine. Scuba gears nice to have but debris can do a lot more damage than most people realise.

Effect on performance is not an issue now with new designs of cutter that the RNLI are now using.
 
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