Scotty Emergency Crank Handles.....

[Seafever]

I have a couple of older electrics with the little black emergency crank handles.

Wondering if anybody has come up with a better home-made crank handle that fits these.

If you have a power failure or any reason to wind in the rigger from,say,250ft....it is a royal pain to use the Scotty handles because they don't have an actual handle on them.

I got caught once with a battery failure in the Alb. Inlet.

Fished anyway....and because it was Sox...we were winding in with the emergency handle numerous times. It got old real quick.

I don't want to have to do THAT again....there ..or anywhere.

Any ideas?

 

[jaymasta]

Keep the old manual downriggers onboard somewhere lol

 

[jeffywestcoast]

i bought an electric 1101 and a scotty 1080 strong arm handcrank for that reason, once my wallet feels fat enough for the second electric i will have the hand crank for a spare when i break a line one of the electric downriggers i still have one to fish both sides. beats having to run a slip weight one side. Also i have already wired the second side with new style marinco fitting for anyone who want to come along and would prefer to bring their electric instead of running er by manual and or running brutus.

 

[jeffywestcoast]

Hey Seafever what about using a cordless electric drilldriver and adapting some sort of nutdriver to it, would definitely come up faster then the emerg crank handle.

 

[Seafever]

Food for thought, Jeffy......

It wasn't so much breaking a line I was worried about...it will crank up o.k. with no ball on.

Just thinking about those possible days when the battery fails and then you have to crank up all the way with the ball still on it.......

 

[jeffywestcoast]

I know i sure do get pissed when i have to hand crank from 160 feet after a shaker strike.. man alive sometimes its not down for 2 mins and whamo..dinker alert

 

[jeffywestcoast]

Also i am paranoid of killing my battery after 5 or six times up from 16-200 i like to run the big motor for a bit to try n bring voltage back up . when my big motor was still running that is.

 

[Stosh]

I hate using the hand crank as well, but it is really only for emergencies, not for fishing with. If u r concerned about loosing battery power, you should have 2 batteries to insure u have enough reserve starting capacity. I run 2, and replace them after 4 years - just to be safe, plus I always carry a booster back with jumper cables.

Good fishing
Stosh

 

[jeffywestcoast]

I have two batteries but the boat i have 16.5 KnC does not have alot of freeboard so i don't want to add the extra weight to the back of the boat,i have a voltage gage that plugs into the cig lighter so i can see exactly what my voltage is doing, worst case scenario i run in on the kicker.

 

[Seafever]

If you can get your engine started (if battery packs it in) with a pullcord or some other device, it is o.k. to run the engine into a dead battery. (Like a dead battery that has plate damage and won't take a charge). They told me it is better to do that than unhook the battery leads and have the charger running into nothing.

If the engine is running, but the battery is failed, it won't have enough output on the charger to run the downrigger.

At least mine didn't at the time.

I run an AGM type battery now (very good)........but the battery that failed on me was a wet, plate-type battery.

I guess the continued boat vibration and bumps on the road when trailering simply caused chunks of the plates to fall off over time.........

 

[fshnfnatic]

I have two batteries but the boat i have 16.5 KnC does not have alot of freeboard so i don't want to add the extra weight to the back of the boat,i have a voltage gage that plugs into the cig lighter so i can see exactly what my voltage is doing, worst case scenario i run in on the kicker.

Where did you get the voltage gauge from,JWC? I'd be interested in having one of those on my boat as well.

 

[Fish Assassin]

Canadian Tire sells them.

 

[Seafever]

Jeffy....I think you run the same fishfinder as me if I'm correct.....

There is a setting on it that shows realtime battery voltage......my other fishfinder had that too.

Just saying.......gives you some idea of where things are at.......but the meter would be good too.....

 

[fshnfnatic]

Canadian Tire sells them.

Thanks FA. I'll give em a try.