toerag

Well it hasn't all gone ashore, one local angling boat here found 8 lengths of timber within 2 hours at the weekend, so keep your eyes peeled!!

With reference to the reels for the heavy rods - you don't need anything bigger than a charter special 1000 or SL30SH if you're using braid. I can fit 500yds of 50lb powerpro braid PLUS backing on my SL30SH's so I don't see the need for anything bigger.

What about the uglystik 1480 model 15lb class uptide 8'6"? that's got a soft tip but plenty of power in the butt? The 12lb class suveran is excellent too, but lacks the butt power of the uglystik.

Nice fish, well done! - it'll be good to see all the facts and figures posted where once the scales have been read.

You're right - a mate of mine was confused to see a seagull standing on the water 12 miles out - it was stood on the end of a telephone pole floating vertically!! As to the simulation - there's a good French webpage about the simulation they did when the Ievoli Sun chemical tanker sank in the Casquets TSS.

That's due to not having any wood in it - nidaplast is a lot lighter than ply, to the extent that they're building Offshores with ballast tanks to increase the weight when necessary.

Hmm, the british record committee met about 3 or 4 weeks ago so I would have expected the welsh fish to have been ratified if it were true. Claiming records - fish do NOT have to be kept provided that the following criteria are satisfied:- 1. fish is fairly hooked 2. line is not touched apart from trace on landing 3. Capture is witnessed or affidavit sworn 4. Fish is identified BEYOND DOUBT. Things like conger, bass, ballan wrasse are easy and good photos should suffice. Shads, mini wrasse, hounds, mullet etc. are not so easy and a marine biologist's opinion should be sought. 5. Fish is weighed on dry land 6. Fish is weighed on certified scales. Most angling clubs keep certifed scales, and all scales used for trading (eg. shop, fishmarket scales) should be certified. They key is repeatability - if the captor says the fish weighed 12-2-0 on his digi scales, but the scales weigh the same load differently everytime it's hung on the scales, then that won't count. If the scales weigh the same everytime, but happen to be 2oz over each time then the error will be compensated for. With point 4 - you can always put the fish in an aquarium to be IDed at a later date. If anyone is serious enough about keeping fish alive, then there's always a way to do it.

Channel light vessel saw 8 hours of solid F8 and 1 of solid F9 with gust to 69knots on sunday. There was a Nab17 moored in the bay near me on sunday afternoon, this morning it was nowhere to be seen, I suspect it simply filled up with water and sank. MY dustbin lid has simply disappeared.

You're right, if they're fishing next to each other the bigger boat won't catch any more. You do forget, however, that the bigger boat has rougher weather capabilities and can go out more often, therefore catching more fish.

That's pretty sly and underhand of you, you should be ashamed of yourself! I certainly wouldn't take any of you lot out on my boat!

Errr... you can get osmosis from water in your bilges too you know, and any dodginess in keelband attachment will be found out by wet bilges! Get her really dry and flowcoat them if they're not already - makes for a cleaner, more waterproof bilge.

OK - so I've no experience of trailering, but from reading the thread it seems that the biggest problem is dunking hot hubs/bearings in seawater - so my suggestion would be to cool the hub down when you arrive at slip if you have time before launching. ...like anyone will do this, we're always late to arrive at the harbour aren't we!!

Let us know how you get on!

Have you had the fins off yet? I still think you're suffering some kind of drag issue. What sort of trim angle does she run at at full speed? I have trimtabs, but always leave them set fully up - the drag they create when lowered is horrendous. I find it best to keep the stern as light as possible, as weight in the stern really hurts performance. I've found that running at 0 or +1 on the engine trim gauge to be the most efficient. This might be a silly question, but is the drive fitted at the correct height on the tramsom? PS. to find the best engine trim angle set the throttle at certain revs then adjust the leg in and out whilst watching your speed ( I use slack water and the GPS speed). At maximum efficiency the boat will be most easily driven, and thus the speed and revs will rise. PS. unless you've had the boat weighed and know the weight for sure you could well be over 2.5 tonnes, a friend of mine with a 150 AD31P like mine said the crane drive told him his was 2.6 tonnes. PPS. Sorry for not seeing your post saying what sort of leg you had and asking you twice!!

Do you not have a volvo leg on it? I can't believe you can only get 14 knots out of her. Crikey, even with 6 aboard and full fuel and fishing crap I can get 26 out of mine.

I asked one of the trusty engineers at our volvo dealer about them this summer and he said the same - there were issues with the first ones, but the current versions are fine. He has an MI21 with a 150 AD31P like me and drove a customer's with an early 160 D3 - He said it was slightly faster at the top end (160 vs 150), but the big difference was with the acceleration lower down the rev range. In his words "I can more or less floor the throttle on my AD31 and then untie my mooring ropes before it's decided to do anything, on the D3 it virtually leaps out of the water as soon as you push the levers forward." One interesting point - the engine/drive combo is about 100kg lighter than the AD31 combo, which is like taking a really big fat bloke off the stern of your boat! In an MI that makes a lot of difference, 'cos they hate weight in the stern.

All the pics I've seen of giltheads show the body to be silver. The shape of both species is very similar, but the couch's are always pink in coloration. Having said that, I don't know if a juvenile gilthead has a pink tinge to it. Either way - both fight like mad so it's all good news! edit - excellent photos here:- http://www.sealordphotography.net/gallery/1988836#101520368 I think it's a juvenile gilty - look at the black and red markings on the gill covers.

There's a couple used for commercial rod&line bassing round here - one has a mahoosive engine on the back and fishes some mentally rough places - ABM can tell you more. Survey is a good idea; although there's not a lot to go wrong, the cost of repairs on a boat under 10k make a 'write-off' more likely.

You're only getting 20 knots out of your MI with a 130? That seems a bit slow to me, I can get 31-32 with my 150 version of the same engine. I have a set of A8 duoprops on - what are yours? I reckon on losing 2-4 konts of top end speed if the leg is dirty and the hull a bit slimy, but don't really notice much effect until I get to 23 knots +.

There's a well kitted out version for sale on the fishing dartmouth website news page called Amarretto. A mate of mine has seen the factory, albeit many years ago. He was put off by the untidiness and dampness, which is not really condusive to good laminating. I would say that they are a step up from an MI21 though, similar to an Aquafish (which are getting very popular) but possibly a better design? They can certainly handle a lot of power and tend to come with a 200 volvo diesel in them.

Were they live or dead joeys?

Tom's plan sounds good although the water puppy is fairly power hungry, up to 8amps for the 12V version. This can easily flatten a battery enough to prevent it from starting a diesel engine if you have the pump running for ages without running the engine, eg. long slow drifts on the schole bank interspersed with quick runs back uptide. Believe me, I know!!! Having said that, the waterpuppy provides good flow.

If you're going through an area packed with small boats ie. christchurch ledge(?) then 2 mile range isn't going to be detailed enough. You really need to turn the range down to 0.5 miles in situations like that. Still, you're learning, and at least you have the sense to buy a radar. PS. next time you're out try to pick up a buoy/lighthouse equipped with Racon so you know what it looks like on the radar.

I've had one of the Gitana trimarans come past me once - I was on my own one minute, knelt down to gut a couple of pollack, looked up and there it was, 100yds away doing 20knots+!!! What a machine, but nothing compared to this one! - speaking of which, have you noticed that the mainsail isn't even fully hoisted On the subject of Hyrofoils - did anyone see the documentary about surfing huge waves a couple of years ago? They were using surfboards with a hydrofoil on as it's difficult to get a normal board to go fast enough to catch the waves, and a hydrofoil has a smooth ride due to 'chop' not having any effect on the vertical leg.