Looking for Respect: Buoy-cutting

“Saying, I’m sorry, doesn’t even begin to cover the damage,” said lobsterman Leroy Bridges, of Deer Isle. He was talking about recreational boaters who, when they get their boats wrapped around lobster gear, cut the buoys from the rope that’s attached to traps on the ocean bottom. “If I were to reach in your [back] pocket and pull out $225 ....” He let his sentence trail off.

Bridges, who prefers using balloons with his name and phone number on them to the usual Styrofoam buoys painted with his colors, recalled a woman who phoned him once to say, “We went afoul [of your gear], but it’s all right: I’ve got [the balloon] right here in my hand. We had to cut it free.” Bridges thanked her for saving the balloon, but said, “It’s the $120 worth of traps I’m worried about.” She said she had no idea fishermen could spend that much on a trap. (They can fish as many as three traps in a string in Maine state waters, with each trap alone costing $85 to $100 and that’s not including another $25 for the cost of rope, toggles, and buoy for each trap.)

About ten years ago, Bridges said, the Eggemoggin Reach Regatta and the New York Yacht Club came through Deer Isle’s Jericho Bay. “They literally decimated our bay,” he said. “In [that week] there was probably around $10,000 worth of fishing gear lost.”

Brooksville lobster fisherman Dana Betts says overall things haven’t changed much since then, it’s just that the cost of the gear has gone up. “When they have races,” Betts said, “they have a total disregard for [fishing] gear.” He observed, “There’s a lot of fishermen who have lost a lot of gear.” Although he had been lucky for some years, Betts admitted, “Last year, I got clobbered pretty bad.” Asked what he considered “pretty bad,” Betts replied that he lost eight or nine “pairs,” or 16 to 18 traps at $85 apiece. That comes to a loss of $1,530 just for the traps. Had they been hundred-dollar traps, Betts would have lost $1,800 for the traps plus another $450 for the rope, toggles, and buoys. And Betts noted that other fishermen lost larger, more expensive traps and gear.

With so much more gear in the water than ever before, in certain high traffic areas boats are forced to play dodge-em or plow right through lobster buoys, getting pot-warp wrapped around propellers and rudders and usually having to sever the buoy from the trap lying below. Lobstermen end up losing valuable fishing time and money—a double whammy—each time they have to replace a lost trap. But that’s not all: They also have to purchase and add new trap tags as well as having to make replacement buoys.

Recreational boaters, trying to slalom their way through channels and thorofares filled with lobster gear, think lobstermen deliberately set traps in high traffic areas to keep recreational boaters away, but that kind of thinking reflects ignorance of the art and mystery of lobstering.

Now, fishermen will be quick to admit they, too, are guilty of parting gear; but invariably they know whose it is. They grab the line and tie something onto it, then call and let the owner know what happened and where. Although many recreational sailors make sincere efforts to avoid getting wrapped in pot warp and having to cut buoy lines, others see buoys as nothing but nuisances. Cruise ships officers five or six decks up can’t even see buoys; ferries, tugs, and some recreational boats will not deviate from a given course or GPS plot; whale watch boats wander all over the place, cleaning out gear as they go; racing sailors want to win; and some people are just plain inconsiderate.

“Sailboat owners [say] they are inconvenienced by all the traps in the water,” said Betts. “This is our living, and they should respect that. If one of those boats gets in any kind of trouble,” he observed, “fishermen are the first to help get them out of the mess and save the boat. They ought to reciprocate by saving the fishermen’s traps.”

Betts remembers having a horrifying experience of a racing sailboat bearing down on him some years ago as he was hauling a trap. “I saw him coming straight at me from a thousand yards away,” Betts recalled. He thought the boat would veer off, but it didn’t. When he realized the boat was going to hit him unless he moved, although he had the right of way, Betts had to use extreme means to save his boat. He threw the trap to his son, grabbed the throttle, and rammed the boat around. The sailboat passed without striking him, but, Betts said, “It was extremely close.” As he passed by, the yachtsman called out, “Thank you.” Betts was so shocked, he was left speechless.

Dangerous as that close call was for a fisherman, his crew, and vessel, snagging lobster gear can be equally dangerous for yachtsmen, said Curtis Rindlaub, of Peaks Island, who writes A Cruising Guide to the Maine Coast and the Maine Coast Guides for Small Boats. He reported having seen an older woman at the helm and an older man in the water with a knife, trying to cut line caught in the propeller. Rindlaub said of such a scenario, “It’s just a matter of time before someone dies of a heart attack.”

Richard Sullivan, M. D., of Cape Elizabeth, agreed. Having never snagged lobster gear before, some summers ago, it happened two times the same day in Penobscot Bay. He said, “I sail all summer, and it never happens in Casco Bay.”

Sullivan explained, “The first time, I didn’t know what happened. It was totally disorienting, because I make it a habit not to sail over lobster traps.” (Sullivan said he was sailing, not motoring.) “To get at that line—it’s way under water—you have to have a dinghy, unless you have a ten-foot boat hook. Then you have to get in the water, and if you’re 75 years old, and it’s October, you’re screwed. It’s very dangerous.”

Sullivan objects particularly to tide or wash buoys set close to a trap buoy. “What happens when you’re sailing into a whole slew of gear,” he said, “you go next to a buoy and there’s a taut line just under the surface [connected to a second buoy]. That’s a booby trap.”

Sullivan said he felt guilty about cutting the first line: he thought it was his fault. The second time he got tangled, though, Sullivan said, “I realized I was a victim of a booby trap and felt good about cutting the line. Next time, I’m going to be armed with a ten-foot boat hook with a razor.”

When Betts heard that story, he said, “That’s the exact attitude that lobstermen resent.” He explained that there are tide holes: places where the tides run so strongly that buoys will run under the surface. To make sure they can find their traps, he said, fishermen “will tie on a second flotation device on the very tip end of the line. We’re not trying to sabotage anyone,” Betts said of Sullivan’s remarks. “He can think what he wants.” Betts wonders what recreational boaters think of Maine fisherman and asked rhetorically, “Do they expect that we are going to put our traps on the bank till after they leave?”

Stonington fisherman Gotwals voiced much the same opinion when he said, “There’s a feeling among fishermen that they’re paying the price for other people’s recreation. At the same time, [yachtsmen] feel they have the right to enjoy these waters.”

Another fisherman says the tide or wash buoys start at about Mussel Ridge into Rockland. “The way they’re tied,” he said, “they seem awfully close to the main buoy; you can’t avoid ’em. If fishermen rigged a wash buoy or put a toggle underneath the surface to stay below, they’d lose a lot less gear.” He admitted, though, that fishermen aren’t likely to change the way they rig their gear.

Despite the lobstermen’s ire, recreational boaters have a formidable weapon they can use to avoid getting tangled in fishing gear: cutters.

The late Roger F. Duncan, who wrote for many years, with John P. Ware, A cruising Guide to the New England Coast, explained spurs or cutters some time ago: “On the shaft of a power boat, very often, they have two little nubs that, if they catch a trap, will cut it,” Duncan said. “It can happen without the operator knowing it’s happening.” (Sullivan interjected, “I am totally against spurs. I will cut selectively only when snagged.”)

One company that manufactures these cutters has an Internet write-up entitled, “Line Busters.” Rindlaub’s Internet website: www.mainecoastguide.com, has a place for yachtsmen to voice their opinions on cutters and buoys. Rindlaub said, “I would love feedback from fishermen. I’d be happy to post it.” He feels his job is to help yachtsmen understand and respect fishermen and their livelihoods.

Duncan’s son, Robert, has taken over the writing and editing of his late father’s Cruising Guide. “On page 584,” the elder Duncan had said, “there’s something to the effect that if you get wound up and you find you have to cut, it’s a real nice thing to tie the buoy on. If you can’t, at least you can find out whose buoy it is, and it would be better than polite to check it out and let him know.” Robert Duncan stated, “From a personal perspective, recreational boaters need to respect the efforts of working men on the water. Essentially, we’re playing and they’re working.” He added, “I am not enthusiastic about cutters because they tend to make yachtsmen ignore trap buoys.”

“Sailboats are much less likely than power vessels to get snarled,” Roger F. Duncan had said, “but very often these days they’re under power, and propellers can more easily get wrapped around traplines.”

Both recreational sailors and commercial fishermen have come up with various remedies:
R. Anderson Pew, who sails out of Northeast Harbor, suggested that certain thorofares have marked zones within them a few hundred feet wide that would be off limit to lobster gear. Lobstermen could have as many traps as they want elsewhere in the channel. That way, he said, “Everybody comes out ahead.” The areas he’d like to see set up that way are Eastern Way, one of the portals to Great Harbor, passing through the middle and out the south portal; Western Way, off Mount Desert; Eggemoggin Reach, between Brooklin and Deer Isle; and Merchant’s Row, off Stonington.

But both Bridges and Betts think Pew’s plan wouldn’t work because sailboats need to tack. The fishermen figure boats would have to stray outside any gear-free zone. Betts said, “When they have those races, there’s no possible way they could stay within that few hundred-foot boundary without getting snagged.” He added, “There would be too many boats to fit in the boundaries.”

Bridges and Betts prefer putting a cage around the propeller, which they say costs far less than installing cutters. For sailboats with spade, or hinged rudders, Betts suggested installing a false skeg: a piece of metal going from the bottom of the keel to the bottom of the rudder. “Then it would be able to sail right over the top of ropes and buoys and toggles,” he said. “With the proper equipment on their boats to prevent snagging lines and buoys, all inconveniences could be avoided.”

“If a yachtsman gets wound up,” Roger F. Duncan suggested years ago, “he might get on the radio and say, ‘I’m such and such a vessel and I’m right here and I’m all wound up in a trap. I’d be real glad of some help before I have to cut it’.” Bridges agreed, saying, “I know of nobody who would not respond to such a call.”

Bridges admitted, “The problem of snagging fishing gear won’t be resolved any time soon, but until then,” he said, “a little respect would go a long, long way.”

Rindlaub’s website has tips on how to avoid snagging gear. E-mail should be sent to his website: www.mainecoastguide.com or letters to Curtis Rindlaub, 19 Brook Lane, Peaks Island, ME 04108.

For the article on spurs go to: DIY-boat.com/Pages/DIYP/prolinks/2001_4/proj2.html.