Kelly's Eye Component for a Fishing Trawl

This invention relates to a Kelly's Eye, a component for use with chain used in a fishing trawl.

In the past, the deep sea trawling industry has had to rely upon mild steel fittings which are of uncertain strength, and wire rope for its trawls.

We have now found that by using heat treated alloy steel instead of mild steel, preferably nickel chromium molybdenum alloy steel, and fully heat treating the alloy, a much stronger and more reliable trawl results and the components can be made extremely wear resistant and have a Brinnell hardness in the range of 380-410. This wear resistance means that the life expectancy of our components and the chain itself should be of the order of 10:1 compared with components made of conventional mild steel. Furthermore, because of the quality of the steel alloy, it has been possible to design components and chain which, as well as having high strength, are of light weight and are easy to handle. This has the advantage of reducing crew fatigue and in certain instances of reducing manpower.

Traditional Kelly's Eyes have been of figure of eight construction, and a length of wire is spliced to the smaller of the two eyes of the figure of eight. It is now preferred in the trawling industry that chain be used instead of wire rope because chain has greater wearing characteristics. Furthermore, traditional Kelly's Eyes have had the two loops of the figure of eight lying in planes slightly inclined to each other. We have now developed a Kelly's Eye to supersede traditional Kelly's Eyes and which is adapted for connection to a length of chain.

According to the present invention we provide a Kelly's Eye component for use with trawling gear, said component comprising a metallic member, one end of which is in the form of a ring, the aperture in which is sufficiently large to allow passage of a trawl rope and the other end of which is slotted to resemble a shackle, the two arms of the other end being apertured to receive a connecting pin and at least one of the arms having a further aperture therein extending at right angles to the first aperture and being arranged tangential thereto to receive a locking pin arranged to engage in a tangential slot in the connecting pin in the main aperture, to enable an end link of a chain to be connected to said other end of the member.

Preferably, the two arms of the other end of the member are provided with oval apertures to receive an oval connecting pin.

Preferably, the component is formed of nickel chromium molybdenum alloy steel with a Brinell hardness in the region of 380 to 410.

Preferably, the component is substantially flat with its two ends being located in the same plane.

Also according to the present invention, we provide trawling gear which incorporates at least one Kelly's Eye trawl component as hereinbefore described.

A preferred embodiment of Kelly's Eye according to the present invention is now described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view, and

FIG. 2 is a sectional elevation.

Referring to FIG. 1, the Kelly's Eye component is a metallic member having one end in the form of an annulus or ring 1 having a curved periphery shown in greater detail in FIG. 2. The internal diameter of the ring 1 is sufficiently great to allow easy sliding passage of a wire rope 3 but is sufficiently small to prevent passage of a stopper component 5 connected to the wire rope and which is the subject of our co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 498,766, filed Aug. 19, 1974. The other end of the Kelly's Eye component is slotted at 7 and its two arms are provided with oval aperture means 9 to receive an oval connecting pin 11, thereby resembling a clevis or shackle. Further apertures 13 are provided in each of the arms of the other end of the component, extending at right angles to the oval aperture 9 and arranged tangential to said aperture to receive locking pins which engage in tangential grooves or slots in the connecting pin 11. It will thus be appreciated that the end link of a chain 15 can be connected to the other end of the component and for this purpose, the inner peripheral surfaces of the ends of the arms of the other end of the component may be dished to receive the end of the next link of the chain 15.

As can be seen from FIG. 2, the internal periphery of the ring 1 is flattened somewhat to allow chain to ride over it and co-operate with the shoulders of a stopper component fixed to the chain and the subject of our said co-pending application Ser. No. 498,766, to prevent jamming. By "flattened somewhat" it is meant that the inside surface of the ring is arcuate on a radius greater than one-half the thickness of the ring transversely to the general plane of the ring.