All our commercial lobster boats here use a "pot tipper" rather than the boom type pot hauler you have depicted above there.
A lightweight recreational rock lobster trap tipper
Typical timber slat type lobster trap.
Here you see a commercial vessel with one trap sitting on the tipper - presumably ready to re set.
Less cumbersome, because most of it is outside the boat, leaving cockpit free when not in use & traveling between traps.
Rope is grappled & the bitter end with floats fed between the handles and over the blue roller - then the bitter end put around a 12V winch capstan. As the lobster trap is hauled up to the side of the boat with the winch, it sits flat side against the support frame and further hauling with the winch tilts the mechanism over the gunnel by its pivot point - the trap then slides down the tilt platform stopping at the two handles to the 2 uprights and sits there while you open the trap door and empty the catch into a tub on the deck below those two handles, once they are tipped inboard. You slide the two external bait container lids open on top of the trap to replenish bait, slide the lids closed, close the trap door - grab the now coiled rope and floats (buoys)(our winches are fitted with a auto rope coiler) and drive around looking at the echo sounder for where you wish to re set the trap.
When you wish to deploy the trap - you lift one of those two handles - the mechanism tilts outboard of the boat sliding the trap out away from the side of the boat back into the water - toss the coil of rope over the side followed by the bitter end with floats and your ready to go use a grapnel on a long line to get the next pair of trap floats & repeat process.
Its a similar system on commercial boats to what you see on deadliest catch with the alaska king crabs - except we use much smaller traps, & where the winch is hydraulic rather than 12 v electric and they set and haul on average about 160 traps a day on average
Effective... and also removable for storage if your not lobster fishing for the day.
I reckon it might be a lot quicker and less potential effect on vessel stability on a small boat than the pot hauler - due to lower leverage height above meta-center with the pivot point slightly inboard and located at gunnel height rather than out at the end of the boom - well outboard of the hull when pivoted on the depicted pot hauler.
I guess it all depends how many traps a day you haul, here the recreational fisher is only allowed to haul 2 traps per person a day and maximum of 4 traps with 2 licensed trap fishers aboard. The photo is of a recreational lightweight tipper the principle is the same a commercial one would be more sturdy with a stainless roller instead off the blue one shown for example.
I used to work as a consultant in the lobster industry and the 'pot tipper' is used exclusively here- no boom style pot haulers. We have 600 professional lobster boats on our west coast with an export industry worth anywhere between $300 and $600 million per annum - one of the biggest single species export earners in the world alongside your Alaska King crabs of course.
I just offer it up as a potential new idea for the members - no doubt you guys could soon fab up one of these and give it a workout.
Cheers
Nice job 
