Pot nightmares

In these days of radar and pin-point chart plotters it’s becoming ever-more tempting to steer close in around headlands in calm weather after dark, especially if you’re cheating a foul tide. The trouble is, this honest fisherman and his chums love laying their crab pots well inshore over those nice juicy rock bottoms. The pots aren’t charted and they generally don’t show up well on radar. If the current’s strong enough you might even miss them in daylight because they’ve literally been towed under. Some areas are worse than others, but spending the night moored by the propeller as the tide whooshes under your stern remains one of a skipper’s worst nightmares.