Sanspeur closes on a pot at Cape Saunders, off the Otago Peninsula, where they have had most of their pots set this season.
A small grapple is used to snag the buoy rope and draw it to the boat, where a winch is used to lift the heavy pot on board.
Pots are set using GPS co-ordinates. After landing, emptying and re-baiting the pot, Gavin uses the few minutes it takes to position the boat back over a mark to measure and grade fish.
The smaller but still legal crayfish are thrown back, leaving fishermen with bigger crayfish and a better price the next season.
The keepers.
Quick release elastic bands allow the pot to be opened and the fish dropped into a bin for sorting.
With the boat on auto-pilot, Arty and Gavin scrub the deck on the way back to port.
With the course set for home, Arty relaxes at the wheel. During their typical four-month fishing season, the pair will set sail between 3.30am and 5.30am each day and return to port between 4pm and 6pm.
The boat passes Wickliffe Bay on the port side, on the way home.
Unloading the catch is the last job of the day.
Sanspeur sits back at her mooring in Careys Bay as the setting sun colours the sky. She will not have many hours rest before it is time to head to sea again.
The sun peeps over the horizon as Gavin lifts the first pot of the day.
Nearly all of Otago's commercial crayfishing quota of 123 tonnes has been landed for the season after it stafted in June. Typically crayfish are caught close to shore, in pots set on a rocky bottom, and by boats staffed with two or three-man crews. Illustrations editor Stephen Jaquiery takes a pictorial look at a day on board Sanspeur, fishing out of Careys Bay with father and son crew of Arty and Gavin Heineman.