toerag

If it's any consolation to you, it's even worse on my side of the channel!! I've been wrecking 4 times in the past couple of months and 3 of them have given only 5 fish to 2 rods. We've found the feeding periods short as you did, and the fish mostly <10lb. Only on one trip did we have a reasonable quantity and quality. The Dartmouth boats have found it hard too, One fished all the way across the channel to Guernsey a week or so ago with 5 rods and only had 4 fish!!!! Yet apparently the wrecknetters have been doing well?

The longliners here use cuttle for their ray lines, so it does work. It probably helps to avoid doggies.

Be careful repairing stress cracks - if they're from a one-off impact (dropping an anchor, twatting a lock etc.) then feel free to repair them as detailed above. If they have appeared with no apparent cause then they're almost certainly due to the glass stucture underneath flexing, in which case you have to stiffen the laminate as well as repairing the gelcoat or they'll simply re-appear. I have loads of 'flex cracks' on the gunwhales/cabin of my boat, it was simply not laid up thick enough when she was moulded.

If you have the black & red rotary switch be aware that the internals can undo themselves if you always rotate it the same direction. It happened to me.

that would be why they have rubber bushes? Dunno. I enquired about them as the rear props on duoprops are susceptible to 'cavitation corrosion' and I thought SS would remove the need to repaint them every couple of years and my volvo dealer advised against it.

SS props work better as the blades can be made thinner. However, hit something hard and the chances of you breaking your drive are way higher than with alloy or grp.

Nah, don't think so. For some reason the pollack seem to stay on the UK side of the channel until later on, I've never done well until March. These trips were experiments to see if they were on wrecks too far for the UK boats which I hadn't fished at this time of year, and they obviously aren't. The water is also extra warm this winter which is probably confusing the pollack as well. The wrecknetters haven't been able to get out much this winter, apparently pollack was fetching a higher price than cod in Brixham and Newlyn (wreck netter capital) a couple of weeks ago! Speaking of prices - how much do the commercial guys get paid for pollack in the UK, does anyone know?

The price on the 2006 and 2010 has dropped like a stone since the new 3000 series came out. The only advantage to the 3xxx ones is the networkability as far as I can see, and that's a waste of time when you need to see chart, sounder and radar at the same time. I have a 2006 (B&W) which was on the boat when I bought it - brilliant bit of kit, the only bad thing is the greyscale's not too useful for distinguishing which areas dry, and which areas are covered with 5m of water. I have 1300+ waypoints in mine!!

Pics as promised, apologies for the quality, but they were taken on my phone. I would have taken a couple when she was fresh out the sea, but she was quite a tatty fish so didn't bother.

Went wrecking on sunday 31st, it was rough and we could only make 7 knots into a short deep chop in the dark so fished a couple of close in well known wrecks. 6 drifts and no bites on the first meant another hour plodding out to the second where my mate managed a pollack around 12, I had a pout and 3 pollack, the biggest being a PB of 19-4-10. (poor pics to follow). On wednesday the 3rd another mate and I had better weather so put in a 100 mile round trip fishing 6 wrecks in the process for a grand total of....5 pollack to 15lb something! Really poor, we had 4 of those on the 1st wreck we fished! The pollack obviously haven't arrived in numbers yet, and the wrecks seemed totally barren, my mate couldn't even get any pout on his bream gear on the last 2 we tried!

Are we assuming that both boats will do the same speed and economy? If so, then boat #1 of course! However, as said earlier, the lack of a fast sterndrive 6.5-7m boat of the correct style is a real restriction in choice. Aquafish 23s would fit the bill but don't have much in the way of accomodation. Everything else with accomodation (jeanneau, ocquetau, arvor etc) peters out at 19 knots.

New boats can have trouble just as much as old ones, especially if it's a new design, the manufacturer is bound to get something wrong. Take my boat for example, it's a proven design but the mould changed hands and the new builders didn't build mine as strongly as they should have done and it's suffered badly from flexing. I know of another 1 year old boat that's got osmosis already as the first layers of mat weren't laid up properly.

There's an aquafish on FAFB at the mo,

I use the back of my gutting knife for small fish like mackerel, anything bigger gets chucked in the box with another box stacked on top so they can't flip out. Most roundfish die or stop wriggling within a drift or so, only flatties and dogs tend to live for ages.

It's still thick though, should last for ages.

Another vote for whiplash/whiplashPro as it's usually discounted down to

There's an aquafish for 22k on FAFB at the mo called Tia-Jane. Has been mainly used for commercial diving, longlining, and rod & line fishing.

I use 50lb braid for one simple reason - the ability to break out 30lb traces when snagged and get most of my gear back. There's nothing more annoying than wasting a drift or 2 tackling up when the bite is hot. I use 15lb class rods for pretty much everything, so still get plenty of fun, perhaps more so as I can really bend them into fish!

Yep, GPS is fine in all weathers, I've used mine in dense fog, snow and torrential rain. Rain and snow will affect the radar, but you can adjust that to get rid of it. However it'll probably get rid of any reflections from small GRP craft in the process.

I've kept my out of date rockets on the boat as they're probably the most useful, however I have used the handflares for lighting campfires for scouts, they're always very impressed. If your out of date flares are the same firing mechanism as your new ones, then definitely set off the handflares in a sensible situation so you know what to expect if you have to use them for real. Police/RNLI/ship chandlers will know what to do with out of date flares for disposal.

How much was the aquafish with a 200 in it? Is that not a bit overpowered, and doesn't the enginebox take up most of the deck!!

hairdresser boat = bayliner 2865 ciera sunbridge! The gay bowsprit/anchor holder type thingy on the front costs him

That's because it's so thick!! 20lb fireline (original) is about as thick as 80lb whiplash. As anglers I think we should pressurise braid manufacturers to provide diameters, because it's diameter that makes the real difference to perceived strength in real-world use. Personally I have 50lb whiplash on my reels as the 30lb is too unreliable - it seems to suffer from abrasion a lot more than the 50lb stuff. I did try 65lb but it was virtually impossible to break out of snags unless tied to a cleat (not easy when drifting at 3.5 knots!)

I don't know for sure, but I do know that someone at the engineering firm where my missus used to work had to be treated for lead poisoning recently and has made a good recovery. I don't think he had it from making weights though. Those of you using pressure stoves - if you can get one that burns paraffin as well as petrol, then use paraffin as it burns hotter, even if it is a bit messier. I'm amazed the burn temp of propane is only 10degrees higher than butane. Perhaps the benefits are in the lower boiling point resulting in better cold weather performance? It'd be interesting to try burning acetylene instead of propane though.......

The problem with petrol if you go long range in a fast boat is carrying enough of the stuff!! I know someone who had an MI21 with a petrol V8 - they'd use the full 30 gallon tank plus a couple of cans when wrecking at 30miles!! The phrase 'floating bomb' springs to mind!! For reference - My MI with a 150 diesel burns around 25 litres an hour at 25 knots when she's clean, and a good 2 tide days wrecking will run to 100 miles according to my plotter. So a mile/litre for me, and 4 cans of fuel for a good day out. Or put another way, I can spend a tide on the Schole for less than 2 cans. My mate with a 5.6litre V8 petrol in his hairdresser's boat burns over 4 times that volume!!! Realistically you have 2 choices - work out how much fuel you'll burn, then compare servicing/engine costs for petrol and diesel to see if it's worth it. Petrol engines are lighter than diesels, (although not by much these days) which may make a difference in a sub 26ft boat. An MI with a 135 honda will go as fast as mine simply due to the lack of weight in the back.