Prop Shaft Line Cutters: Yes or No?

[Navicula]

I have a shark......there info is online and you can call them, they do answer a phone....

[Trim50]

Photos of my spur install. These things do the job on nets, rope and even cable. They have saved our butts several times that we know for sure and who knows how many times we don't know about.

[bobw100ton]

One thing worth considering in the spirit of cruising many cultures and living in the Florida Keys where I know many commercial fisherman. There is a significant investment in each trap and it's relative income over time. Once you drag/cut the trap float it is lost to the owner. I recognize the convenience it represents for me but .....

[garrobito]

..best investment you can install.. My (design and build for a friend) save me from nets, fishing lines and crabs pots more time I can remember... highly recommended...

[Bacchanal]

After a race and motoring back to port I heard a loud BANG_BANG_BANG from under the boat. I thought I'd caught a lobster pot, but this was a much louder noise than I had ever heard. On diving I found it was our spin sheet that someone had let slip over the side. It had wrapped so tightly that it actually pulled the shaft aft and my engine was standing up on it's now vertical motor mounts. As I unwound the line the shaft snaps back into position and the engine slams back down. End result: 1 broken motor mount, one damaged one, engine out of alignment and lots of vibration. Could have been a lot worse. Still the boat needed to be pulled for inspection. We limped in to the marina. $2200 for this error. The line cutters are a bargain compared to that. I'm putting one on over the winter.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by bobw100ton

One thing worth considering in the spirit of cruising many cultures and living in the Florida Keys where I know many commercial fisherman. There is a significant investment in each trap and it's relative income over time. Once you drag/cut the trap float it is lost to the owner. I recognize the convenience it represents for me but .....

I don't think it makes any difference to the owner of the trap whether you destroy it by getting it wrapped in your prop and shaft, or by cutting it cleanly. He's lost it either way, but if you have a cutter, you've at least saved your prop and possibly your boat.

[cabo_sailor]

Originally Posted by bobw100ton

One thing worth considering in the spirit of cruising many cultures and living in the Florida Keys where I know many commercial fisherman. There is a significant investment in each trap and it's relative income over time. Once you drag/cut the trap float it is lost to the owner. I recognize the convenience it represents for me but .....

Bob I agree, up to a point. I don't think any of deliberately run over crab pots. However, the courtesy goes both ways. If I accidentally run over a pot in the middle of the channel, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Similarly if those props are moored with steel cable, I consider that an active act of vandalism that's going to cost some boater big time.


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[Cadence]

Originally Posted by bobw100ton

One thing worth considering in the spirit of cruising many cultures and living in the Florida Keys where I know many commercial fisherman. There is a significant investment in each trap and it's relative income over time. Once you drag/cut the trap float it is lost to the owner. I recognize the convenience it represents for me but .....

I agree it is their livelihood and one that seems to start about 4AM. I have picked one up and sailed it out of the waterway. Ate tails that night. The warp was in tact and the numbered float, so I hope he found it. The trap is cheap it was the lead weight that cost. One thing that had not been mentioned, is a cut free trap is a self perpetuating thing. Catching the catch becomes bait.

[HopCar]

I once ran a few stone crab traps. Some of them lost their buoys but I was able to find most of them anyway. If you get a pot warp wrapped around your prop, the fisherman is going to lose the buoy anyway when you dive over to cut yourself lose. Better to just have your shaft cutters cut the line and leave the trap exactly where it was.

By the way, they don't use lead to weight the traps, they use concrete.

Ghost fishing is an issue but whether your Spurs cut the line or you cut it with your wife's kitchen knife that's still going to happen. The only solution to that is to use escape panels that deteriorate very quickly.

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by HopCar

I once ran a few stone crab traps. Some of them lost their buoys but I was able to find most of them anyway. If you get a pot warp wrapped around your prop, the fisherman is going to lose the buoy anyway when you dive over to cut yourself lose. Better to just have your shaft cutters cut the line and leave the trap exactly where it was.

By the way, they don't use lead to weight the traps, they use concrete.

Ghost fishing is an issue but whether your Spurs cut the line or you cut it with your wife's kitchen knife that's still going to happen. The only solution to that is to use escape panels that deteriorate very quickly.

The one we hauled in the Keys was not concrete it was lead. The Eco folks would probably get upset. I'm not pro or con. In the Keys it appears they set in or close to the channel as marked but a dawn to dusk job and I'm sure they are hoping not for a lose. The kitchen knife is a hoot. The serrated ones are the best. The carving ones, turkey today rope tomorrow.

[Hoghead]

I can't seem to find where to buy the Gator?

From the video posted earlier I am leaning towards the scissor type, however my boat is FRP and not sure about attaching the stationary part ad this must impose a considerable shock load when encountering a steel cable and stopping the prop dead?

[tsenator]

Originally Posted by elschwieb

We have a Prop Protector (Spurs would not fit, but were our first choice). On one occasion, we hooked three (yes, three) crab pots while under sail. It was blowing like stink and the Admiral would not let me go over to cut the lines or try to free them. She said "we installed the Prop Protector for this reason; try it." I started the engine and, with trepidation, put it into gear -- pop, the lines separated and there was styrofoam everywhere. I hated to lose someones pots, but they were in a channel area. I have heard of Spurs cutting chain but cannot vouch for that. I say they are an essential for cruising in potted areas or where you may encounter lines. (Another option, if you can reach the shaft from the deck (which we cannot and certainly could not while underway) is a tree limb trimmer, but that is a fall-back in my book.

Twice I have sailed and unknowingly snagged a lobster pot line in LI Sound. Also Got a Crab Pot in the Florida Keys - Here is my experience. One time, in LI Sound, I dove and unwrapped it (Boat didn't have line cutter) but the second boat DID have a spurs line cutter. It was late in the Season and weather up ther getting a little colder . I started the engine and tried putting it in gear to "chop" the line but each time it stalled the engine. It must have had a really good wrap (I was heaving to to have lunch and enjoy the afternoon) The seas were building and I was practically anchored from the stern - Not fun with a newer boat transom that has an opening -- I needed a diver to come "unwrap" me from the "Lobster Pot rear Anchor".


Then in the Keys with my newer bigger boat (Jeanneau 43DS) which has I think a "Shaft Shark" I was motoring and expectantly ran over a crab pot . It was so loud I thought I ran aground but what happened was it hit the pot and float . A few seconds later I saw the chunks of the shattered float and knew what happened. It DID cut the line away from the crab pot, but not really cleanly . I was trying to motor and felt the uneven vibration, so we stopped and I dove in (God don't you love the Key's and beautiful warm water.. LOL) It was still wrapped quite a bit, and you could tell the line went around and around and around and around quite a few times. I was able to unwrap everything ok, but I wonder if the "Spurs" would have done a better job cutting it right away -- It seems the "shaft shark" had to wrap a few times before it bit down and started slicing the line .


Just my experiences.



Either way I would never have a boat without one now .

[tsenator]

Originally Posted by bobw100ton

One thing worth considering in the spirit of cruising many cultures and living in the Florida Keys where I know many commercial fisherman. There is a significant investment in each trap and it's relative income over time. Once you drag/cut the trap float it is lost to the owner. I recognize the convenience it represents for me but .....

Really ? I know up in the Northeast that most all of the commercial Lobstermen have their Lobster Pots tied with another line between the Pots (I assume on the sea floor) just in case a boat cuts the float and the line they can still get the pot.


I also know a lot of commercial fisherman have line cutters on their boats themselves. The loss of one pot is not worth the hassle of wrapping a prop for them .

[sailah]

I used to work as a sternman on a lobster boat growing up in Maine.

Most sets are stringers of 10 traps in series with a haul line at each end. If you cut one line, the other works just as good. Attaching a new haul line is common during the day.

If both are cut you just drag across position with a grapple until you snag and then redo.

Even 20 years ago the lobstermen knew where their sets were and I'm sure it's even easier was the accuracy of GPS now. A set of 10 traps isn't going to drift very far from 3 days ago.

That said I do everything I can to avoid and they are everywhere around me. I have Spurs and a scuba rig onboard, have never needed either. I guess I'm just tuned to them growing up around pots. Even had a license when I was younger.