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Too much info re you bowels Steve, you don't want anything moving much when in a dry suit so I hear.

First time since Dec 9.2nm. That got things moving again

Just finished Martin, late start due to some beer drinking last night, not sure if I blame the quality or the quantity either way it hurt! 🍻😪😪

Sorry it's late, but happy birthday Dave.

One of my boat rods required a new reel seat and when asking around I was pointed in the direction of Gary Allner. Garry lives up in Wallisdown and I took my rod to his home, he does collect rods from most local tackle shops. Garry rang me to say that he was having a problem in obtaining the same make reel seat but another make would fit ok. So went ahead with the repair and collected on Thursday night. What a superb job and cheaper fix than first quoted. Would recommend Garry to anyone who wants a quality repair Contact details are Gary Allner on 07944101577 Dave

Happy birthday Dave, and Mark!! Tight lines

Inside the boat: This was a different story, simply due to the difficulty of passing cables and pipes though inaccessible parts of the boat. Ignoring time to go to Screwfix to get some fibreglass rods for fishing cables back and forth, this next stage took me around 3 hours. With the hydraulic pipes (black) and sensor wires (grey) now inside the boat (thankfully above the waterline and not impeded by anything inside the hull) it was time to pass them through to where I wanted to site the HCU (hydraulic control unit, or pump). Having examined all sorts of options for passing them behind, under, through and bits that would not require any cutting or drilling of the boat, I opted to drill two 10mm holes as the lesser of evils. The alternative would have been to cut a large hole in the splashwell to grant access to there and then fill it with a screw-on cover. I didn't fancy that if it could be avoided as two 10mm holes with silicone filler in this position will pose a far lower risk of water entering the hull than a gurt bit fitting on the stern and exposed to the weather. My once tidy battery locker because a snakes' orgy of wires, pipes and tools. But, with a small amount of cursing, fibreglass splinters and more cursing, I managed to regain control and get everything where it needed to be. The HCU/pump was easy to fit, but harder to fill with ATF fluid. I'd recommend a very small funnel (which I didn't have) or lots of paper towels (which I thankfully did have). Then it was simply a case of running the big blue control wire to the helm, having cut out a convenient space in which to mount the switch. This would have been slightly less troubling had I have been sure that it was going to be long enough. When I ordered, I didn't think to specify a length, so what I got was only just long enough. Do bear this in mind. This particular switch requires both a standard positive connection but also a positive connection from the engine key. This is so that when you switch off your engine, the tabs are automatically told to lift up. This was a key feature for me to avoid any damage by the dry stack fork lift if I forget to lift them manually before leaving the boat. I took the regular +ive connection from the feed to the switch panel and the engine-switched +ive connection from the rev counter's positive feed. This is now my helm position, with the trim tab switches in clear view and easy to tweak as you look at the bows of the boat. I thought about mounting them lower, but this would have meant having to look back and forth when you really want to be concentrating on what effect your use of the tabs is having on your trim. All done, and I had her put back in the water for a quick sea trial. Everything worked brilliantly, although I did find that in pushing the pipes/cables up into the battery locker I had mixed up which was port and which was starboard. The sensors were correct though, so 50% right! Back at the pontoon, I quickly swapped the pipes around on the HCU and everything was working as it should. And how did it perform? Remarkable. Firstly, a disclaimer - with only me on board, and less weight at the stern in particular (no kids, wife, fishing tackle etc) then the trim was always going to be better. However, it was very obvious that the trim tabs had a huge effect on the boat's trim when applied. Being a big enough fellow, my weight alone in the helm's seat does tilt the boat slightly to starboard. The tabs easily corrected this. Equally, I could drop the bow to an acceptable level very easily. I'm now looking forward to trying it out fully loaded, but I have high expectations based on what I've seen so far. As ever, doing one job on a boat shows up others that you need to do. In this case, I need to fit an extended auxiliary engine mount so that the leg does not foul the trim tab. I also need to fit a different stern ladder for the same reason. I expected these. However, I had not expected to find that my four-way battery control switch is either not working or has been wired up badly. It seems that there is constant power to the 12v system even when in the "off" position and that the other settings don't work as they should. That might explain why my VHF keeps telling me there is low 12v power when the domestic battery has 12.9v. Ah well, another job for another day. Hope that has been interesting for people considering doing the same type of thing.