Safety buoy reel
This reel is designed only for use with a safety stop buoy.
If you want a reel for caves or wrecks spend the money and buy a proper one.
The bits and pieces you need to collect are:
Something to use as a reel
3mm thick PVC plastic down pipe offcut for the chassis and line guide
Stainless steel bolts, washers and nuts for the axle and winding knob
Winding knob, clips and line.
There are many ways to make these parts. This is my solution trying to keep it as cheap as possible and using easily available materials. You may have suitable stuff lying around like old fishing reels.
The reel
I made mine from a rubber water tank tap hole assembly bought for $6.00 from a plumbing shop.
To form a reel I unscrewed the assembly, cut off the threaded centre shaft, cut the hexagonal centre sections to about 25mm each, reversed one side and screwed them both back together on the shaft.
The chassis and line guide
Made from PVC down pipe scavenged from a building site. It needs to be about 3mm thick to be stiff enough.
You first need to open out and flatten the PVC by cutting then softening with a heat stripping gun. Once heated the plastic stays bendable for about half a minute in which time it can be bent into many useful shapes. To make it really flat sandwich it between two flat pieces of wood as it cools.
Place the reel on the flattened out PVC and trace a circle around it. Draw the chassis 5mm wider above and below (in this diagram), 15mm wider to the right, and extended by the width of the reel to the left. This shape enables you to attach a clip to the bottom and hold the chassis to wind in the line.
Cut out this shape with a jig saw. Drill holes in a line to form a line slot and smooth down with a file. The slot should be slightly shorter than the reel inner width. Heat the chassis with a heat gun and bend the line guide up at 90 degrees. I used pieces of wood to hold the line guide in a true right angle position as it cools.
Place the reel on the chassis so that it is centered and clears the line guide by about 5mm. Mark and drill the centre hole for the axle bolt.
The axle
You will need to buy bolts from a sailing shop to fit your own reel and knob. You will also need 2 washers, hex nut and nylock nut for the axle and a bolt with 2 nuts and a washer for the knob.
The axle needs to be just thinner than the reel centre hole to prevent too much wobbling and I slipped an aluminium tube over the bolt to make up some space. Assemble the bolt axle with the head outer-most, a washer either side of the reel, thread on a nut, then through the chassis, then a nylock nut on the outside of the chassis to lock it all together. Adjust the position of the inside nut to just allow the reel to turn freely then tighten it all up again. Check again that the reel turns freely.
The knob
The winding knob is bolted to the reel with a nut either side of the reel outer face and the head outside the knob.
Cut bolts to length with a hacksaw and file the sharp ends off.
Wind on some line, attach clips and a bungy loop.
Safe use of the reel
Always unclip the reel from your BC before adding air to your safety buoy. Hold the reel in your hand and be prepared to let it go if the line jams unless you want an uncontrolled fast trip to the surface. A bungy loop on the reel is useful for preventing the line unwinding and stowing the safety buoy for the clamber back onto the boat.
Make sure you test it out in shallow water before actually needing to use it and regularly check that the bolts are tight.
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