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US 4,165,830 AGranted
Crab pot warp line coiler
AssigneeMarine Construction & Design Co.
InventorRobert A. Svendsen
Life of this patent
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AssigneeMarine Construction & Design Co.
InventorRobert A. Svendsen
Estimating the term…
A crab pot warp line coiler is disclosed utilizing the unique properties of "Crab Lay" type synthetic line. Drawn by the coiler from a pot hauler, the line passes initially around an input guide sheave and thereupon downwardly across a vertical span into the nip between opposing guide rollers underlying the guide sheave. These feed the line directly down into the central part of a receiving enclosure serving to confine the coils which inherently form in a sufficiently orderly manner in the process without other guide means being required. The feed rollers, one comprising a pneumatic tire that runs in a peripheral groove about the other, are yieldably spring actuated toward each other so as to grip the line for feed purposes with a pressure that, by reason of the overlying location of the input sheave assuming horizontally directed incoming line tension load, is kept substantially independent of line load tension. Furthermore, the heavy and bulky knots securing together the successive shots of the dense Crab Lay line are enabled to pass through the feed rolls readily at the high hauling speeds employed without disrupting the continuous coiler action, nor causing excessive mechanical shock in the apparatus.
In crab pot hauling and handling aboard a fishing vessel using a powered pot line hauler operable to haul in the crab pot in a substantially continuous haul after the floats are first brought on deck, continuous line coiler apparatus mountable on deck and into operable engagement with which a portion of the incoming line connected to the floats grasped by a crewman may be laterally inserted to initiate coiler apparatus operation without hauler interruption, said coiler apparatus comprising an upright generally annular coil-forming enclosure having an open top adapted to receive pot line fed downwardly into the same, mutually opposing substantially coplanar drive rollers, means mounting said rollers from one side thereof to form a downwardly directed line-engaging nip open to the opposite side of the rollers to permit lateral insertion and removal of a line therein, at least one such drive roller being power driven in a direction to continuously draw the incoming line from the hauler and to thrust the line directly downward generally centrally into said enclosure, thereby inherently to coil the line in such enclosure substantially without intervening physical line guidance, resiliently yieldable means operatively associated with the drive rollers to effect compression of the line between their mutually opposing nip surfaces with a force establishing drive traction on the line and with a degree of resilient yieldability that substantially absorbs the shock of line knots passing through the nip, and means operatively associated with said drive rollers tending to maintain the line, including line knots, transversely centered in said nip, including line guide means also laterally engageable and disengageable by the line in conjunction with lateral insertion and removal, respectively, of the line in relation to the drive rollers nip, said line guide means being mounted above said drive rollers in position to direct incoming line received from the hauler directly downwardly into the nip substantially in the plane of said drive rollers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.