Why Spear Pointed Fish Outriggers

[Dennis.G]

Talking about outriggers on fishing boats. We are in a Mexican marina right now, and were sitting down to eat dinner. Another boater is calling for help to rescue a pelican that he thought was tangled in the rigging of a nearby fishing boat's outrigger. We get the outrigger down to the deck, and we find that the poor pelican is actually impaled on the tip of the outrigger. The tip of the outrigger is right through his torso. We extract the creature from the pole and it is quite obvious this is a lethal injury. I mean the bird has basically been speared right through his gut. He must have flown right into the tip. We had to put the pelican down, which was very unpleasant, but at least he didn't just hang by the pole until he slowly died.
But why the hell are these things made with spear sharp points? I know all are not made this way, but a lot have tips more suited to a javelin throw than as a fishing accessory. Needless animal death was the result.

[a64pilot]

They look cool that way, a whole lot of boating stuff is to look cool, KVH sells a lot of empty Satellite domes so that you can put a fake one up to match the functional one, many of the yachts you see with twin domes, one is an empty shell.

[Dennis.G]

Not so cool looking with a dieing pelican skewered on the end of one. :-(