Lobster pots and ways to avoid them

[tfliveright]

I am planning a sail from Nova Scotia in late Spring when the waters are filled with lobster pots. Other than traveling inch by inch, can anyone suggest ways to avoid them and obviously the lobster fisher folks' wrath? One thought and I have no experience with them is the use of forward seeking sonar.

Ideas?

[Chotu]

By eye in the daylight.

At night? By hope and prayer.

There is no avoiding them, other than to know they are in the more shallow, coastal areas.

They are less often in main thoroughfares as well, since they don’t want to lose the float, toggle and rope to the many props going through.

However, there are even a few right in the channel sometimes.

Just have spurs installed or a knife at the ready in case one gets on your rudder or prop. You can usually pull it with a boat hook enough to cut it if you can’t get it off.

You can sometimes also unwind it from the prop in reverse after cutting. Lots of seaweed gets stuck on the prop too in those areas and needs to be unwound.

Oh yeah. Bring a mask too, in case you really get it wrapped on the prop.

Despite the suckiness of the commercial fishing gear, it’s a great area. Absolutely beautiful

[Bill O]

Don't believe a forward scan will work well enough to see them. Eye-ball nav is best and unless needed, stay out of the areas of higher concentrations.
You will need to watch the currents (so you don't slide into them) and pass the markers on the appropriate side.
We carry one of these in case we snag one on the rudder.

[MicHughV]

I wouldn't even try to sail at night...the odds will be stacked against you...the water will be cold....a wetsuit and a sharp knife is a MUST requirement. Trying to clear a prop during the day is challenging enough, but at night...fugetaboutit....
I've come across lobster pots way off shore...
They are a blight, no if, ands and buts about it.

[NSboatman]

Good advice so far. The sw Nova season ends May 31, so if you can delay until then you’ll be much happier.

What is the underbody shape of your boat? Do you have experience with it catching pot lines already? Some hulls really don’t snag much; while others are like seagoing grappling hooks.

It’s not something to be trivialized- I have had the misfortune of picking up a surface leader on a string of traps, while making an entrance in the fog and on a lee shore in about 18 kts and a good sea. We were anchored by the prop shaft for a while until we dragged the string toward the shore. Dropped my main bower anchor as soon as I figured out what the hell was going on and put out a securite call - there were at least a half dozen lobster boats nearby. Was quite a mess as we slowly dragged both the line of traps and my anchor across the granite bottom towards the rocky shore. Thankfully the anchor caught and we had time to breathe. In the end I was unable to clear it. not a single boat came by until I was pulled in by the inshore rescue rib that responded to the 2nd (now Pan-pan) call on 16.

Left me quite paranoid about trap lines. But- I still sail all year round in these waters, but only in daylight when traps are in.

The whole whale snagging thing is becoming a big deal here, and I’ve noticed some fishermen are being much more reasonable in the length of line hanging off the leaders- just enough to keep the float visible in reasonable conditions. There are still some though, who think that putting out 350’ of line in 30’ of water is ok. Those guys suck.

Forward looking sonar is useless in these situations. Don’t even bother.

Thankfully, it’s not year round, like in Maine!

[Scubaseas]

A folding prop, vigilance, a pipe run from the trailing edge bottom of your keel to your skeg base if you have a split underbody would all help. Not sure if forward scanning sonar is fast enough yet but most pots will show up on radar. If you go out into deeper water there would be fewer traps. Consider that they don't take them in at night and people seem to worry less about pots at night.

Keep a grappling hook and stout boat hook if you do get stuck. Use the grappling hook to bring the line from the pots up (the haul line), tie on a spare line with a rolling hitch, cut the haul line so you can pass the snagged line under the boat while holding onto the float end then retie the float line back onto the haul. If that makes sense. Have fun!

[BobFord]

My experience is limited to South coast ,Australia but same problem everywhere. No1 - don't move at night but beware many ports are choked with cray boats and you may not be able to anchor !!
Daylight- viz. of course ,then rope cutters on props . If no prop running ,I made a 'forked', end to boat hook pole , my pole is 9 feet long. Then , at rest , the pot line can be pushed under rudder/ skeg.
I find that "Anglo Saxon " expletives also helps !!

[tfliveright]

Folks, great advice and experiential reporting. Many thanks! As it turns out, in answer to NSBoatman, some of this query is speculative as the vessel potentially involved has yet to be secured but is a Niagara 35. I wish i could wait until June but if the sale goes through will need to vacate in April so all the recommendations are wonderful although not without mild paranoia. I wonder if any of you have ever attempted to recruit or hire a local lobster pot pro to pilot you through the underwater web. It would be in their best interest although I would guess, rightly, they would utter a good deal of above water grumbling.

[Chotu]

Oh wow. You are coming out this from a never been on the water perspective. That’s a different perspective. I can tell by your last post.

Let me try from your perspective.

Attached to this post, please see what it really looks like underwater.

The main thing you need to do is just don’t run over the thing marked “buoy” in this picture.

Also, you have to pay attention to where the stick is pointing. Do you see in the picture that if you pass on the side of it where the stick is pointing, you don’t hit any lines below the water?

That’s the big trick. No matter how crowded it is, you just make sure that you are nearly rubbing the stick side. It points you where to go. You don’t have to worry about an underwater web. There is no such thing. Not with lobster pots. Fishing nets are a different story. But you can see those all lined up in a row. So you can pass between a pair of them so they are equally distant on both sides of your boat. That way the catenary effect of the rope between them means it’s deep.

Sometimes the lobster pots are strung together, actually most often, so the simplified version I showed here can have a lot of traps below the water all strung together. But that doesn’t matter to you. You can go right over that stuff. You just don’t want to get caught on the line that goes from the trap array up to that ”buoy” in the pic.

Some of them also have something called a toggle. This is a second little float that is floating near the main lobster pot buoy.

The toggle doesn’t matter too much. It just makes it more obvious where you have to pass. The toggle will be on the side the stick does not point to.

So just continue to pass on the side where the stick points. That’s all you have to do. It’s actually a lot less complicated than you are fearing.

[deblen]

https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ts-223111.html

[Scubaseas]

In the NE they typically use trawls of 3 to 6 pots with lines and buoys at both ends. If you do get snagged, try and cut the line but leave a float attached. Ghost gear is a real problem and a line of trawls with lines at both ends runs quite a chunk of change for the lobsterman. It's not that hard to unsnag yourself or to save the haul line and put a float, any float on it. Practice makes perfect and I've had to do it a few times having commuted daily between NY and CT for about 5 years. Since you have a spade rudder you need to be especially vigilant. If you had a full keel you can almost ignore pots.

Keep in mind that the trawls are laid out parallel to the current. And the pots travel in pairs as there will be a line with buoy at each end and most times the line will go down at a slight angle. I always try to locate the second buoy as it's the one you don't see that usually gets you. You can sail within about 8 feet of the buoy if up current. If passing behind/down current or to the side of the buoy, you can literally bounce them off your hull and not catch one.

If you must travel at night a good, high-power spotlight is very helpful.

[Captain Bill]

Note that the lobster boats have cages around the props so they don't worry about snagging pot lines. They don't have any knowledge about hot to avoid pot lines. The advice given here so far is pretty good. You must learn to distinguish the float and toggle as in times of low or no current the stick will be sticking straight up and you definitely do not want to go between the float and toggle. Sometimes in really crowded areas it can be difficult to tell which toggle is connected to which float.

[Scubaseas]

One way to deal with it...

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by BobFord

My experience is limited to South coast ,Australia but same problem everywhere.

. . .

I find that "Anglo Saxon " expletives also helps !!

Indeed proper communication amongst the crew is beneficial when untangling with lobster pots.
Do recall that Mary, the Mother of God, was going to name her child, Gary, up to the moment she stubbed her toe.

When you do haul in the marker line, ya might have a go at keeping one of the crays from the trap for dinner, that tends to make the entanglement seem like less an adversity. Albeit don't take their Catch of the Day But do endeavor to reattach a float so as to avail the recovery of the traps by the commercial lobsterperson, respect their livelihood and equipment.

[RaymondR]

They are common on the Western Australian coast and often the float is at the end of a long floating line and in the dark one does not notice the float it being well abeam. Since I had a long keel boat we would often just ride over the line without a problem.

The one time the prop caught and wound a line we were able to use a grappling hook to catch the line under the stern and winch it up and cut it. We then caught the float end and were able to untangle it from the prop by winding the prop shaft backwards.