Since writing my article about knives on life jackets debate, I’ve been looking around for alternative solution. The dive industry has several solutions, but the one that interested me the most was the Eezycut Trilobite Knife (get it here).
The Trilobite Knife is essentially two blades enclosed in a plastic cover. You put the rope into a slot on the side of the knife and pull. The rope is then cut. It’s designed to cut up to 5/16-inch rope (8mm) easily, and it can cut up to 1/2-inch rope (12mm) with the right technique by rotating the knife around the rope. You can watch a demo below. It can also cut webbing.
The blade in the knife is double sided and the tool itself is double sided, so there’s built in redundancy. But there’s a slight chance that you could cut yourself with the side that isn’t being used, so using the right technique is important with this tool. The knife ships with a replacement blade and you can purchase blades separately. There are a number of different pouches available for this knife. I got the Flexi Pouch which attaches to the shoulder strap of a life jacket using Velcro. There are also a bunch of colors. Since I’m from Minnesota, I got purple.
Garage Grown Gear is a Minnesota-based online store that sells lightweight gear from small and cottage brands. They carry a lot of hard-to-find and unique gear.
Eezycut sells the product as having an “Effortless Cut” and a “WOW factor,” and after first using it I was wowed. It’s really easy to cut a rope with this tool. It fell amazing to me, and after inventorying the size of ropes that I use, it would work just fine to cut decklines, tow ropes, throw ropes, and painters.
Here’s a demo showing the tool cutting different ropes.
Here’s a demo of it cutting 12mm rope.
You’ll notice in the videos that they are demoing holding it two different ways. The online instructions talk further about this, but I’ve found that it does require practice.
After practicing with this tool, I’ve now removed my knife from my life jacket. The biggest thing that I was using my knife for post-guiding is spreading peanut butter. When I was guiding, I often used the blunt point to fix rudders on Current Design kayaks. In my ten years of sea kayaking guiding, I never used the knife in any entanglement situations, which was due to good rope handing skills, but I always wanted it there in case something went sideways.
Now, I feel like I have a better tool that requires less practice and might be safer. I’m glad I looked around to see what was available.
Anyway, if you’re looking for a tool to have handy on your vest for entanglement situations, and you should have one if you use ropes or fishing line, then the Eezycut Trilobite Knife is a good option. You can get it at Amazon in a variety of colors at this link.
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