mike60

Can I be cheeky & ask what rigs are being used to catch plaice, & is there anyone who would kindly give me some idea of dimensions, components, hook sizes of these rigs. thanks Mike.

I spoke to Bob on the phone today & he`s coming over tomorrow to give me a hand, Seems like a really nice bloke. I think I`m just getting a bit fed up after all thats happened, Just hoping its all done with & I can get on with a really decent season. Some good days out & some mega cracking fish & I`l be right as rain again. (we can all live in hope!!) Mike.

"Hooking them up is really a fairly straightforward job" I wouldn`t say that, according to the books wires of different colours go together & the tx from gps to vhf has to connect to the ground on the vhf set of wires. Now thats damn confusing to me! I`m getting to the point of using an irish screwdriver & just going back to using paper charts & a mobile phone. The last 6 months have taken thier toll & I am not the patient type. Mike.

Well! I seem to have lost Bob, Don`t know what happened there? if you are still offering, Bob, can you give me your number (without 12 digits.) I can then give you a call. Mike.

Well! Its parked in the garden here on Bovington, I am looking for some kind person to give me a price to come & help me with wiring the VHF to the plotter & fitting a navtex & kill switch. If there is anyone in the club with a bit of a flair for this sort of thing I would love to hear from you. PM me or call me on 01929 401716 & I`m sure we can fix you up with tea/coffee or even a couple of cold ones. Mike.

Update, I spoke to Tony Mullen yesterday & asked what was happening about my battery & hatch, I was told that the battery had been found & it was on charge at that moment, The hatch, I was told, must have blown off when they took the boat the 100yrds from the workshop to the slipway across the road. (This I find unlikely as it was a very tight fit, & managed to stay in place when the boat was trailed from Saltash in Devon, to Portland.) Mr Mullen told me that they would sort it out & asked for the outer & inner measurements of the hatch. So it seems that they may now replace the hatch. Even so I have still been treated terribly by that company & am massively out of pocket for the experience, I will never use thier services again. Thank you all for your support in this & for the offers of help I am very humbled by the good will shown from the members of this club. Mike.

Just to let everyone know, the anchor is now gone. Mike.

I have a brand new Bruce Anchor, never been used, If anyone is interested in it then I think

Hi Charlie, Here`s my confirmation, we`l defo be there, Will trail boat down and put on mooring for a couple of days if theres room. Resteraunt sounds a good crack, Put us down for 2, Chips with everything ok! Mike.

cheers Brian, I was sat at the back of the class chattin` & missed that one thanks for that, I`l look forward to it. Mike.

Hi guys, Is there a list of 2010 competitions so we can see whats coming, I know all the older members (meaning the ones who have been members longer ) may know what comps we have each year & when, But I`m new & a bit slow (its old age!) & I can`t seem to see anything that shows whats on for the year. It would be nice to know when the comps are, social events, etc.. Thanks. Mike.

Hi Martin, I did speak to Dave at the meeting last night, He is getting in contact with Absolute Aqua to find out prices & dates that they can do the courses then he`l contact me to let me know, we can then go at it from there. It was Dave`s idea to get some more members to join me on my boat to save us all a bit on the costs of a course. Its looking good & I`m looking forward to it. Will get the RNLI safety check done on the boat before then, Suppose I`d better stick a bit of old cloth in that petrol leak & a bit of car filler on them holes underneath!............................. Bet that got them lads thinking eh!! Mike.

Well! its always first come first serve, so looks like we have the three + me, makes 4, Great! As soon as we get the dates from David we can look at them & see which will be convenient for all. Watch this space! Mike.

I was talking to david about the powerboat level 2 courses, ie. availability, cost etc, Dave had a very good idea which was to ask on the forums if there is anyone else who would like to do the course & save some money at the same time by doing the course on my boat as a group which would mean only paying for the instructor & not a course boat, We would all put into the kitty for the cost of petrol for the day, which would be a small amount compared with savings we would make on the course. I was thinking around 4 including myself plus the instructor would make for a comfortable day and not be too big a teacher pupil ratio. Anyone who would be interested please feel free to drop me a line. Dave is going to let me know when the course would be (hopefully after March), as soon as I know I will pass it on to whoever would be interested in my proposal. Mike.

Hi all, I wrote this message to the committee & was wondering what others views were on this subject, as Weymouth end seem to be getting very worried about it all. I was at a meeting of Weymouth angling society early this week, there was a lot of talk about the new marine protection zones & natural England. From what I could gather it seems that Natural England are wanting to have an area that takes in Lyme bay eastwards towards Hengisbury, & the fact that this may also (as the lines have been drawn at present) include the shambles bank in with all the reef systems this area is quite rich in. The people at Weymouth were saying that they have already put forward thier views to Natural England as consultation was offered and responses were to be in by the 5th. There seemes to be a bit of worry as to the safety of small boats, especially the more inexperienced amongst them, in that if proposals made were implamented it could seriously put small boat anglers at risk in that they would be forced to go out further to fish if the inshore areas were closed to them. (having total exclusion to all fishing methods) I was wondering what if anything has PBSBAC put forward to the same proposals, Has the AT said anything on the matter & What are you & the rest of the clubs views on this. I believe strongly in conservation & think anything that would give our fish stocks a boost is a welcome thing, but these things should be handled properly & not just be a case of all the idiots coming out of the woodwork to use the new legislation as a hammer to knock our sport on the head. Our views & our safety should be taken into account. Mike & Debbie. (Moonshine)

I`m the good looking one Mike.

What do you do when you can`t get out to fish, This is what I do!!

Sorry! Pirky, Yes! I am coming to the meet tonight with my good lady in tow, (only so she`l buy the drinks. LOL) I am looking forward to it, PBSBAC members seem to be a cracking bunch, it`l be a pleasure putting faces to names. Best wishes. Mike.

I have, this morning sent an email to them to attempt to solicit a reasonable outcome before having to go down a more serious route, as you can see, I think I have been more than reasonable. EMAIL SENT, Tony. As it seems that your staff did not remember which was my battery, the description is as follows, It is a PLATINUM LEISURE PLUS, long, black with label containing a bright green light type flash, a caravan & motorhome. The battery is brand new & is a 110 amp hour. I bought two off these as a pair for the boat & would appreciate the return of the one you have. Would you also please return & put in place the anchor well hatch, & the GPS connection cable from the rear of my VHF. Could you also please inform me why the job of wiring in my VHF & GPS was not completed as you know we had quite a conversation about NMEA connections at the time I asked you to do the job, & you assured me that you knew how to do it. This was asked for originally with the request for the wiring to be sorted, I took it for granted until the other day that you were as good as your word & that the job would have been completed. This seems to be part of a string of mistakes since I trusted my boat to Bluewater Horizons, i.e., the wrong prop being put on, the broken inspection hatch (which you replaced.), the missing battery, the missing hatch, The fact that on a number of occasions I asked you to fit the kill switch, now I have been supplied with one to fit myself, the fact that my boat was left standing for long periods looking like a derelict in a terrible state with nothing being done, The small jobs such as the kill switch could have been done at these times. The fact that your lady said I had asked for the park & launch to be terminated, Which I most certainly did not, (See my previous letter) The fact that as you well know she tried to charge me for items that were quite plainly paid for on a previous bill, & then didn`t have the courtesy to apologise when you proved this to her, & then ( I believe ) She took a hard, unfair stance towards me the following day because of her evident anger about this. All of the above even if you see them as minor things do not look good professionally speaking, i.e. the misplaced parts, If items from customers boats were kept in an area & marked as from that specific boat, then you would not need to shed blame to others saying they mustn`t have known & put the wrong one on, & parts wouldn`t go missing. If you could possibly see my side of this as a customer who put his trust in that company & had to put up with a combination of the time, jobs not done, broken & missing parts, (please dont bring the letter into this, as I did at that late point say don`t bother with the extras such as the navtex etc.) Problems with paying for things twice & attitude on top of it all, Then you must admit that this does not make for a reasonable customer experience. I would, under the circumstances be well justified in making a complaint to the trading standards, or seeing our solicitor, but again I have been reasonable and made my complaints to the company to give them the chance to rectify the problems. I would therefor simply like to see the return of my property, & I will seek someone else to finish the work, If you would have told me originally that you were not sure of how to wire the vhf to the gps, I would have sought someone experienced at that time 4 months ago, which would have saved me the time & problems of doing so now. I will pop down to the yard on Monday to see if the items have been replaced, & will as already stated remove the boat from Bluewater Horizons property by the end of my newly paid up contract in the next week & half. .................................................................................................................. I Don`t think I have been too forceful or disrespectful in my manner, I always try to be decent & give everyone a fair crack, lets just hope this will get me my parts sorted & I can get on and get the job finished elsewhere with less hassle. Mike.

The people involved are Bluewater Horizons Limited, Ferrymans Way, Off Portland Road, Weymouth. The Engineer who when you meet him presents as such a decent & knowledgable bloke, is Tony Mullen. He`s one of those "Yeh! I can do that for you." types, but as evidence has shown "He can`t !, & he`s made a 6 month c%ck up of the whole thing. I did ask Denise in their chandlery, yesterday if the owner was there, she said he was out, & when I asked for his number she said he doesn`t like to give his number out, his office was upstairs, but if i rang her at the shop she`d put me through to hi secretary. (wierd!) Anyway, I have, as said, sent him a letter of complaint, & I have told Tony that I want my wires back & my Hatch & Battery, I`l give them a couple of days while the weather isn`t too good, Then I`l go down & check the boat again. Mike.

Update ! I got the boat back on the storage yard today, went down to see it & found that my anchor well hatch was missing, & my brand new heavy duty battery which has quite literally had no use atall has been replaced with a scabby old battered thing thats probably nearing the end of its life. I had to have a go a couple of weeks ago as I found they had taken my stainless steel prop off & replaced that with a chipped aluminium one, When I queried this I was told by the engineer that "I didn`t really need the stainless one, it was meant really for speed boats." I told him that I didn`t give a damn & there is always the chance that I may need to get to & from a mark because of tidal problems etc, but I would really prefer it if the stainless was replaced, I was then told that his apprentice probably put the wrong one on by mistake. Now this with the battery & hatch lid, Where`s it going to end?? I will be glad when I have it home next week. I have given a letter of complaint to the owner of Bluewater Horizons today & demanded the return of the missing items. Mike.

Thankyou Martin, I`l give him a ring & see what he says. Mike.

You have no idea!! The worst bit was that because I was patient with them, they seemed to take advantage, the boat was sat for days at a time looking like a derelict, with nothing getting done. Think it was a case of "we`l get this other done, He`s ok he`l wait a bit longer." The funny thing is that in the six months they have had the boat, the actual logged time in doing the work that was done, comes to less than a week. Think of all the good fishin` time I have missed since last mid September, all for less than a weeks work. Mike.

Thanks, but who`s Chris, Sorry I`m new on here & would feel really cheeky ringing someone I don`t know out of the blue to ask for help. Mike.

I am totally thick when it comes to wiring, I did ask the engineer at Bluewater Horizons to wire my DSC/VHF to my GPS & wire in my NAV6, It never happened. They had my boat in thier engineering place for a service on the engine & leg, This was last September, As they were doing this work for me I asked if they could sort out my wiring & wire in my VHF to the GPS, 4 months later & after being told on at least 3 occaisions that the boat was nearly finished & would be a couple of days to completion, I went down with a NAV6 & asked if it could be wired in aswell. Today we are in the sixth month since they took on the work, they called to say its finished (At long last!!!), I got a bit annoyed with the time it was taking & so a week ago I told them that it seemed I had given them too much to handle & not to bother with the navtex, The wiring has been sorted, the engine & leg were sorted, but when I went down today to pick up my bits, I found that the VHF had only been connected to the power supply (I could have done that myself) & it had not been joined in to my GPS as i had asked, & on top of this the connector from the VHF to the GPS is missing, So now I have to contact Navico to get a new one. It has cost me