toerag

I have disc anodes on the upper surfaces of my stainless tabs and they last a season. As you're not sure, put anodes on and if they don't dissolve then don't bother replacing them. You can never have too many anodes!

Not for turbot they're not. I just trip my anchor and drag it backwards, then steam back up towing it behind me like the charterboats do. Works well.

Just for info for you guys, I use a Jabsco 'water puppy' to feed my 2 baitwells on my MI, each of which is about 6 gallon capacity. The pump draws 8 amps, so after about 3 long drifts for flatties on the Schole with the engine off, the battery voltage will be about 11.6V with the pump on, not enough to crank the engine. Turning the pump off normally gives enough voltage to start her up, but failing that I switch on the other battery. I can keep mackerel alive all day long with this setup.

Right, I need a big coolbox for the boat to use as a slushbox. The commercial guys here use the Saeplast B series ones, but they're a bit too square for the space on my deck, I could do with something more 'coffin shaped'. I have seen the coleman & igloo ones, but I have a smaller colemen and they're hard to keep clean. Any other recommendations? I have looked up FrigidRigid, Iceytek and a couple of other australian brands but they're even more expensive than the Saeplast ones, and that's without shipping! To give you an idea of cost, a Seaplast B4 is

I could be wrong but I think one would end up in serious trouble with the Environment Agency and the local water board as the run off from this chemical might enter the surface drains which go straight into top water disposal either in the sea or rivers. Mad Mike It's not a problem, I used at an oysterfarm situated in a seawater filled quarry cut off from the sea for over a week at a time. It simply dissolves, much like the phosphoric acid in the Ece chemical tanker that sunk. Besides, it's only the same stuff as is in bleach, but bleach is diluted down to make it 'safer'.

PMSL!! Nice one wedger! I must also warn you that sikaflex sticks to everything you don't want it to, it's much more 'grabby' than silicone sealant. It doesn't peel off like silicone does once dry either, you have been warned!! Best to mask off either side of the area you're applying it to just in case.

Have a look on here, this site gives the buoyancy in lbs for each buoy. http://www.saeplast.com/servlet/Saeplast/g...ductgroup=BUOYS Weigh your anchor and chain, then work out what buoy you need. I nearly collected a washed up A6 bobber last weekend, but someone else got to it first!

also, skin fittings insulated from everything ie. in a GRP hull and connected to plastic pipe do not strictly need any galvanic protection (the techy name for anodes!) Also, boats in freshwater need magnesium anodes as zinc ones don't work well enough. As your anodes are eaten away the metal removed becomes a plating on whatever it was attracted to. Finally, if you use a stainless washing machine drum hung over the pontoon as a livebait container they need the big alloy spindle left on the back or they rot really quickly. - This seems to contradict what I have said above about not having to protect skin fittings, yet my bronze water inlet for my bait tank is fine, no de-zincification at all. De-zincification - poor quality bronze/brass (can't remember which) will have it's zinc atoms corroded out of it and become weak. Random Harvest nearly sunk because of this a while back, one of it's skin fittings disintegrated.

3 pollack and a gurnard between 10 of you? I'd call that an abysmal day myself!!

By far the best stuff for removing weed is sodium hypochlorite. It is the active ingredient in bleach, and is available in 5 gallon drums. We used to use it at the oysterfarm I worked at as a nipper. Simply dilute it 1 part SH to 4 parts water and spray it on with a weedkiller sprayer. Leave it for an hour or 2 then wash all the dead white weed off. Be warned, it is REALLY strong stuff, you need full waterproofs, gloves, goggles and facemask really. Bleach is something like 2.5% strength, we used to buy it at 40% I think. Sprayed neat onto wood is like painting it white!! Normal bleach does work, but nowhere near as well, and it's more expensive.

For what it's worth, I use Micron optima on my MI21 which lives on a marina mooring all year round. Once you get at least 3 or 4 coats on it you do not get any fouling at all on the underside of the hull as it simply gets 'washed off' as you drive around. The transom and waterline however, does suffer a bit of green hair which is easily removed by wiping with a sponge. The antifoul is so 'soft' that anything like a scrubbing brush will remove the antifoul very quickly and allow weed to adhere to the underlying material (gelshield in my case). When it was laid up for re-antifouling this winter I simply used a wet rag to 'sand' down any imperfections. I like it because it's water-based so you don't need any nasty solvents or awkward cleanup procedures. OK, it's not cheap, and you'll probably need to touch it up every season, but it is good. Perhaps not so good on a trailered boat as the launching and retrieving will wear it away too quickly. Perhaps the best solution would be to give it an 'undercoat' of a compatible 'hard' antifoul?

You obviously don't know how good he is at fishing then!!!

Hi guys, one of the switches on my 9-way switch panel has died, does anyone know if it's possible to replace them individually, and if so, how much they cost? The little LEDs seem to be wired into the panel somehow. It's similar to this but black and with more switches:-

There was a story going round Guernsey a couple of years ago about a conger seen in the Cherbourg fisherman's co-op that winter by a Guernsey skipper when he landed his catch there. It was caught in a trawl, only 7ft long but had a head like a 5 gallon drum. Allegedly it weighed 130.......KILOS!!!!

The great thing about this forum is that it's all like-minded individuals. I've learnt stuff on here, and I hope I've helped others in the short time I've been on here. There's not much on the net with regard to doing things to small boats, so this is a great resource.

I've not had any problems with mine, nor do I know anyone that has, but it's one of the few places where you're drilling holes in the hull. I do know people that have had leaks via their keels, but that was on bigger boats that dry out and get bounced on the bottom everyday. Sorry if I scared you, but time spent doing things properly now will save time later. If the boat's been out of the water for some time and is dry then you're probably best to replace the keelband now, rather than after it's been in the water for 6months. Mine has a stainless band fitted with countersunk screws. It's not one piece, it's 3 I think. The front comes up to about 3 inches above the waterline, If I was fitting a new one I'd run it up as high as I could to the bow (yes I know the trailering eye gets in the way) as that's where you hit pontoons when berthing bow-on if you're not careful.

I've just read the article in sea angler, one of my mates in Alderney said that the sea angler guys were over to do a boat test and it turned crappy. What weekend was that?

BobF - your method is completely correct, I just couldn't be arsed to type that all out.... It's also useful to compare your plotter conversion with the one on the wrecksite to see if there's any anomalies. I hate numbers people give you like 49-59-30 1-10-20 - you never know if they should be 49-59-300 1-10-200 or 49-59-030 1-10-020!

Go have a look Adam, even if you don't buy you'll get some ideas of what can be done with the boat. I can't add anything about the outboards apart from the lack of weight compared to a diesel will help stop the scuppers working the wrong way when you have a lot of weight onboard. You'll need a radar arch, as you'll be wanting to make the most of her and use it all the time even when it's foggy. Rail-wise it seems to have all the essentials, so you won't need to spend money on those on day one. I guess the only real thing to look for is a dodgy deck or keelband allowing water to get into the hull.

I believe the 'thick water' in Poole harbour may be why the Condor fast ferries keep breaking down. Luckily for me the water here is crystal clear. I agree that shafts are more efficient, however the extra drag of the skeg & rudder instantly negates that efficiency. A quick look at the specs for Ocqueteaus & Arvors compared to MI's and Aquafishes will tell you that legs are the way to go for an efficient small boat. I personally find that 3 weeks growth of fine green weed on my leg knocks 3/4 of a knot off the top speed, with a corresponding decrease in fuel economy. Of course, a shaft needs less maintenance, so it all depends on how you'll use the boat. I prefer the ability to get to a wreck 25 miles out in a hour, and the ability to clear rope & net from the props.

I normally have my plotter zoomed in so that I can fit about 4 or 5 track lines on the screen 30m apart. Sounder needs to be on bottom lock and zoomed up to the max as you suggested. To be honest with you, it's almost certainly your numbers putting you in the wrong place. If you have your plotter on WGS84 and you have ED50 numbers then you're probably 200yds out to start with. If I don't know the datum of my numbers then I use the datum convertors on the 'wrecksite' to work out all possibilities and put them in my plotter to start with. Having multiple waypoints makes plodding around much easier to do as you have things to refer to and I tend to search at 3-6knots depending on tide. I don't normally look for wrecks anymore unless I have multiple sets of numbers or genuine confirmed ones. There's too many dodgy decca lists and sinking positions kicking around to make anything else worth searching for. Many wreck symbol positions in the plotter won't be good enough to find the wreck, and if they're marked as PA or PD then you've no hope at all. In reality, I consider anything less then 600 tons to be a small wreck, average is 2-3k tons and big stuff is 6k tons + Think about it, the 'Commodore Clipper' is 13k tons and only 120m long, and there's not many wrecks that big lying around. A small wreck is probably only 6m wide and 60m long. If the wreck is intact, big and lying across the tide then you may get a boil on the surface downtide of the wreck. Most wrecks tend to hold a shoal of mackerel or scad above them too. If it's rough you won't find 'flat' wrecks either, your sounderbeam loses too much power as you roll around, and the swell will make the bottom go up and down. Also, my Koden running at 120Khz is a lot better than my Lowrance running at 200khz. Good luck!!

The Southwest 1B chain had transmitters in Cornwall, Jersey & Portland, I don't know about further east. If you can get hold of an old Decca chart then it should have the chain info on it. Once you know the chain info, then you can use the 'Decca 1.0.1' program downloadable on the internet to convert the decca positions in the wrecklist you've acquired (I assume this is what you want the info for) into Lat & Long. If you've got a wrecklist without the colour infomation on it then the help files in decca 1.0.1 will explain how the lane numbering is colour specific. Alternatively some plotters do decca conversions. My Garmin only does Loran C conversions.

I have a pair of exide maxxima (I think) batteries in my MI (150 volvo) on one of theose rotary changeover/combination switches. I can easily crank it on one of them in the depths of winter when the oil's cold & thick. However, I also have a Jabsco waterpuppy running my baitwells which will flatten the battery to ~11.5 volts in 3 long drifts at the schole bank, which is not enough to crank the engine. At this point I have to bring the other battery into play to crank it then revert back to the 'flat' one to recharge it over a drift or 2. I also have my 2 sounders, plotter & radio running all the time, and the radar depending on weather.

I thought Jet drives were easier to dock once you were used to them? I've Seen 'One for His Nob' literally moving sideways into a berth before (OK, so he does have 2 drives). How much does a jetdrive cost? If money was no object and I was looking for a bigger boat I'd be after a jetdrive simply because they offer so much speed compared to shafts, and even compared to a leg they're not going to get fouled up and slow you down. Plus you can't get nets & ropes wrapped round them.