Broken Davit On The Hard Bottom

So George Hardy set out to go lobstering yesterday afternoon and within hauling of the first couple of trawls he busted his davit.

A davit is the boom that hangs out over the boat with a pulley that the line goes through to pull the traps up onto the boat. It hangs out away from the boat so the traps dont gouge the boat on their way up over the rail.

The reason his davit broke was because when he went to haul his traps up from the ocean floor there were four other lobstermen’s trawls set over his. so when he went to lift his trawl up, the entanglement of four other lobstermen’s gear was being lifted at the same time. Apparently it was too much strain for his old wooden davit and it snapped.

This time of year the lobsters are in close to shore so all of the lobster gear is concentrated in a much smaller geographic area. It creates much tension among lobstermen fighting for prime lobster bottom.

The result for George was a davit that snapped in half. Not good.

Broken Davit On The Hard Bottom, originally uploaded by captjoe06.