This new design of rope and debris cutter represents a significant improvement over all other rope cutting devices. In four years of UK fittings only two have required spare parts. Many are on commercial craft from fast fishing cats to ferries, as well as performance leisure and recreational craft.
QuicKutter™ Rope Cutters are a breakthrough in rope cutter design.
How does a QuicKutter work for traditional shaft installations?
Debris is caught by the rotating blades of your prop, the debris is then wrapped with every turn of the shaft first around the hub of the propeller (if there is one) and then around the shaft until it meets the bearing carrier (stern tube or P bracket) as the engine now tries to force more debris with every turn into this gap the forces try to pull the shaft back as the debris pushes on the prop. In extreme circumstances usually with large engines when the effects of the debris are not noticed by the skipper in the form of a drop in engine rev’s whole gearboxes have been separated from engines, or struts torn out of the bottom of the vessel.
The QuicKutter utilizes this force to push the debris against a fixed blade angled so that it shaves through strand by strand. Hardened versions have cut through 5mm S/S wire as they break strand by strand. The Spool is an integral part of the cutter in that debris can not reach the bearing carrier without first meeting the cutter blade.
The three images below show first the line wrapped tightly, caught by a Prop blade, and already being pushed against the sharp edge of the cutter, in the second image the cutter has shaved through one strand of the three stranded rope, in the last image the rope parts. In practice this happens in an instant, and ideally we locate the cutter quite close to the prop (25-40mm) so that debris is cut quickly.
Entanglement is always lurking for powered vessels that voyage through fishing grounds. Rogue rope, rope attached at one end with a float and the other to a fish trap or crab pot, net, line, plastic sheet, weed and other floating debris can all catch the vessel’s propeller.
