Trinidad 30 rescued from the deep

[steelfish]

well, nothing impressive or innovative since its not the 1st rod & reel to be "fished" by a fisherman, but the story is kind of cool.

a local guy called me to tell me he caught a rod and reel while fishing cut bait on a near spot which is around 150ft deep, the rod was broken and not salvageable but he wanted to check if the reel was still in time to save it because it was a good reel a gold trinidad 30, he sounded exited because he had never owned an "expensive reel" as a gold trinidad.

the free-spool lever was stuck and the handle could turn but pretty roughly, so pretty sure everything inside should be pretty ugly corroded.

long story short, the reel had a lot of sand, salt, debris and corrosion inside, but I was able to cleaned it and for my surprise some of those parts cleaned really good a lot better than I expected as you can see in some of the next pictures

I considering not necessary to point out which are BEFORE and AFTER



























now the funny part  


this is the reel completely cleaned and lubed, the NEW owner the guy got scared by the price of new bearings, new drags, a spring activated dog, and new ARB so, he didnt wanted to put any money on it YET until using it for few times so, I just cleaned the bearings and lubed them as well as the rest of the parts, mechanically the reel didnt needed any replacement part, the free-spool lever worked after been cleaned, bearings spin really well they felt rough but the reel can fish like that , the stock drag washers were in good shape, the ARB was toast and the stock dog works as expected


see that handle knob? it didnt look like a stock Trinidad knob, isnt it?
if you pay attention it says PENN


wait, whaaaaaaat?  a Penn handle knob on an almost bone stock gold trinidad reel?
there is only one reel where I saw that and it was on may 2019

click on the next link   https://alantani.com/index.php?topic=28598.0


Yep,  I serviced that reel on may 2019 for a guy that runs a fishing charter and I installed that Penn handle knob from a torque reel to this same trinidad reel, I dont know when the original owner lost the reel in the sea and how much time the reel was under the water when another fisherman found it or fished it, when I was cleaning the reel after being under the water I didnt paid attention on the knob until it was time to clean it and found out it had a Penn knob on it   I said to my self, how could have been the lunatic that installed a Penn handle knob into a trinidad reel then I saw him in the mirror screen on my phone  

this is my trini 16 along the trinidad 30 when I replaced that handle knob in may 2019





it was already a cool story to tell that I just restored a reel that spend some unknow time at the bottom of the sea and I could be able give it a new life to add on that found out it was the same reel I serviced a year ago, if it that wasnt enough what I really can Learn or "save" from this story is that the reel could survive the hard environment and could stopped the destroying process of the salt into the aluminium because the reel was previously "Alantanitazed" in a proper way, if the reel only had the factory lube job when falling into the sea pretty sure many parts were been long gone by corrosion process of the salt by the time it was rescued, I cleared stated to the "new" owner he was lucky this reel was previosly on the hands of Mr. Alex (a Baja little grasshopper of Alantani).

[handi2]

Great story. I'm still restoring reels that got flooded under saltwater. A bunch of others and some of mine too.

Just a note that the Penn 98c-750m clutch bearing work's better than any other one I have used.

[RowdyW]

Great save Alex.          Rudy

[alantani]

nicely done!   

[Bryan Young]

That's great Alex.  Do you know whom the actual owner of the TN30 is?

[Brendan]

     Great story and save.
Brendan.

[steelfish]

That's great Alex.  Do you know whom the actual owner of the TN30 is?

yep, my friend that runs a fishing charter was the actual owner of the reel, I know him since 8 years ago, probably a customer drop the reel but I dont think I should tell him another guy found it, its up to the guy that found the reel to tell him or just keep it, thats why I only shared that story here not in my FB account 

[Brewcrafter]

Awesome story! - john

[Crow]

Good job on saving that one !

[thorhammer]

Alex, great save, and story!

[oc1]

Alex, that is a wild story!  So, are you going to tell the charter captain?  And then, who's the owner?  Maybe "finder's keepers, looser's weepers".

Congratlatins to you and Shimano for going a great job.  They should put your story and picture in the next catalog.  Hold out for two new reels from Shimano, one for the finder and one for the keeper.
-steve

[Swami805]

Nice job Alex, I wonder if the charter capitan still lets his customers use his trinidads?

[Bryan Young]

I'm going to start saving those penn knobs that I replace.

[jzumi]

Awesome story!

There may be something about those Trini 30's.  A couple years back, I was fiddling around with a leader when my 30 went overboard.  Since I still had hold of the leader, I did the hand-over-hand retrieval.  Of course the reel was in free spool so I had a ton of line to wind up.  It wasn't in the drink for very long so it was serviced and cleaned up.

Not too long after that, I loaned it to a buddy who dropped it to the bottom while kayak fishing. 

I figure that reel just prefers being on the ocean floor for some weird reason...

John

[Hardy Boy]

Nice job Alex !! Bringing back a reel like that is fun. Years ago we went on a snorkeling trip out of Cabo. On my way back to the boat I saw something glinting gold on the bottom. It was as deep as I could get but I snagged a rod/ reel. The rod was toast but the reel (Calcutta 400) seemed to be OK. It was before I did reel repair but 80 bucks made it as good as new. That reel was completely full of sand.

Happy New Year :

Todd