TomBettle

Hi Steve If she is "stepping out" in a following sea, this is where you probably need to raise the bow a little. Either bring the tabs right up or carry extra weight, like your live bait tank etc in the stern. Where she is (from your description) quite bow down, what is happening is the bow is being carried by the wave as you drop off the crest and creating drag at the front. The resulting effect is the back will try and overtake. You can pretty much counter this by lifting the bow quite a bit. The resulting effect will be that the back of the boat stays in the water much more than the front and so the drag is at the back. This will allow for the boat to surf comfortably with the sea and should all but eliminate the broaching effect (stepping out). The opposite applies in a head sea. The bow down presents the vee of the boat to the waves rather than a flatter spot halfway down the boat. This effect stops the boat from taking off quite so much as you go up the ramp of a wave and coming down with a bang. As you have explained. every boat is different, but the above rules apply for most boats and a bit of tweaking should find a comfortable position in most seas. Bow up a little for following sea Bow down a little for head sea Tom

Happy Birthday Sam May your 16th year bring big fish, big women and huge smiles on the cracking new boat. Good on yer mate Tom

What time are you guys out until? If it is fairly quiet in the office or you are out late enough, I may dash out with the camera to say hello....

I'll be around. You may find it an EGM of PBSBAC as I think Martin may down around then. If I am not in the office then i will be on the pontoons Mullet fishing errr sorry, with ustomers...

Thanks Mike Good of you to say so. Well nobody came for the coffee! Bob F popped in, but looked completely bemused when I started running around with coffee mugs and getting water for the kettle. He had only popped in on the offchance about something else and knew nothng about my offer of a WI coffee morning (bring your own carrot cake). A decidedly chilled out Martin called saying he may drop by later..... Well, the kettle will be bl@@dy cold by then won't it! Tom

Kettle is on!

Bu@@er! By the time I had written it, you had all s@dded off. Guess I'll have to drink coffee on my lonesome.... AGAIN!

Hi chaps Seeing a number of youonline and nearby I thought I would try an experiment. ANYONE FOR COFFEE? The kettle is going on at exactly 10:20. If you make it down, there's a brew for you. Tom

Nice one Fred Good to see you out there yesterday afternoon. I only popped out with Phill the Bosun on his boat "Fishon" for a couple of hours, but we managed approaching 20 between us (late teens anyway). Not huge fish, but great fun on the lighter gear. Tom

Fred My beasty spat out the yellowfin it had eaten about 40 feet under the boat, whilst the crew were poncing about trying to get a rope ready. It hadn't even been hooked, it had simply wolfed a tuna down so far it was stuck in it's gullet. Got the tuna back, although it wasn't in very good shape...

Bugger it, we'll find a way to manage. I may have to keep the number of photo's of each boat down to 12 or 15... PC world are going to get a bumper order of CD Roms by te look of it!

Mike I was simply going to post: Old Git ,but I saw you had done it yourself, however I do agree, fishing was more fun as a kid. Rich, in answer to your post..... .... Old sh1t!!! ... I kinda recognised your story from somewhere? I have to recount stories of ages gone by a I don't catch many good fish Tom PS: Have I told you the one about.......?

If I can get away with borrowing it we will probably use a Merry Fisher 925 with a small flybridge. Please make sure your gear is insured as although you will be, the camera won't on my insurance! If you visit http://www.southernmotorboats.co.uk or http://www.jeanneau.fr you'll see the boat. Baby 32 foot flybridge. Reasonable space to move about, good sized cockpit and small but usable flybridge. Alternatively, if we still have her, our stock used Prestige 32 which will be that more comfortable on the bridge. Dates: At the moment I would suggest a Saturday in a couple of weeks? Tom

Crazy We weren't using IGFA tackle. I was using the stuff onboard and we weren't comp fishing. The Leader was about 20 feet and then a 6 foot odd wire trace. The fish was straight up and down each time and I was in the chair and the crew appeared to be panicking somewhat. It was a standard day charter out for Wahoo and Tuna and this beasty took the Tuna we hooked. No trophy hunt, I am not into that. As it is they kept the other Tuna and Wahoo (I guess for the fish market). Abbie and I simply booked the boat for a spot of fishing and the shark was a surprise. Tom

Sorry Dave You are on. You too Martin 1 more then for the first shoot. DATES please.... along with some flexibility. Tom

Ooooh alright for some!

Duncan It takes a flash media card, I think the same type of card that Navionics Gold uses. It will take any size that can fit on one of those cards. The card I have is 512Mb. I kow you can get them to 2Mb + nowdays. Top notch camera, the only thing I miss is a really wide angle lens, but it takes great pics, even in Auto mode. Tom

Whilst in Antigua in December 2004 I hooked a huge shark. It took a 25lb yellowfin tuna we had just hooked and had taken heavy 80lb class gear. By the time the other rods had been brought in it had almost spooled me (800+ yards) and the skipper of "Overdraft" had to back the boat up to try and get some line back. After 45 minutes we had got it to the leader about 4 times, but as yet it remained useen. The crew had cleared the deck and prepared a rope to tail the fish once alongside, clearly with the intention of drowning it. I desparately wanted to see the fish, but I really didn't want to kill it so made sure I did a real fanny about job the next time the leader came near. Somehow I managed to shake the fish free and up came a rather mangled (very neatly bitten across the back) yellow fin tuna and nothing else. I was so pleased that the fish got away unharmed, but very dissapointed not to have seen it. It could have been any of the fish below: Blue Shark - Far too big, a blue would have come in very quickly and not spooled 80lb class Thresher Shark - Far too fast Oceanic White Tip - Far too much stamina, a White Tip would have come more easily Tiger Shark - Again far to fast, this fish was mega quick Mako Shark - I reckon it was a Mako, by the speed, stamina and tooth marks in the yellow fin. Going by the gape of the bite the shark was estimated at about 850lb! The bite measured about 19 inches from tooth mark to tooth mark (taking into account the Tuna was only about 14 inches deep - some guestimation made) Wish I'd seen it, but pleased it is still out there eating other yellow fin. Tom

Sam you may well just have been booked. Let's see the dates that come back. Should be a bit of fun and with luck we may get some nice pics of several club boats too.

This is sounding good. So far we have: Gordon H - Fugazi Andy S - Slipalong Steve Bockett - Sanderling Paul J - Marine Boy Terry Bartwell - Stingray The more the merrier. I get about 165 good shots (3Mb each ish) from the card in the camera so I may have to do two sessions if we get much more, but I reckon another 3 boats will do for one session. I need to sort out the logistics of when and where. Location, from ease of doing it, Poole would be best for me with the shots taken out near Old Harry (weather permitting). I'll try and sort out a flybridge camera boat too (not guaranteed) Please can those coming (and any others who wish to come along) suggest some convenient dates and I will try and work around you where possible. All the boats can come out at the same time and tie to a buoy or anchor whilst each boat is being shot. I'll need you guys to take it in turns driving the / a camera boat whilst I organise where the boat being photographed needs to be. Don't worry, you won't be expected to do any flash manouvers on either the camera boat or your own, mostly, just drive at a set speed in a straight line. One we have shot all the boats we may have time to get a good one of you all running together side by side. Again it only works if everyone drives at the same speed in a straight line, but looks great when they come out. Alright chaps: Room for three more on the first shoot. Please suggest some times and dates. PS: Someone could bring a video camera if they wanted to try and get some footage too?

Crezz it really isn't as hard as it sounds. The camera boat will simply move through the water at about 8 knots to start with and you will come and simply sit just inside it's wash right on the starboard quarter. Then you will move out to various angles off the beam at slightly higher speeds. Finally the camera boat will sit still whilst you do a few figure of 8's followed by a full throttle run straight at the boat turning away a few metres off. That is how 99.9% of the boat magazines shoots take place. The benefit comes from a high level camera boat (flybridge) then you can get great water line shots and also those that seem to be taken from a helicopter (NOT - far to high budget). The more boats the merrier. If we can get a few we'll have a good session out there. We'll need a pretty calm (or at least sheltered) and sunny day to get the best pics. The pic that Martin has taken of mine was on a very calm day (look in the background), but it is a great action shot with the boat appearing to jump a wave. Tom PS: The other really nice style of photo is the "chilling out" theme, much like the one that Duncan managed to grab of Quest II on the same day as Martin's picture. Two opposite extremes which we should be able to get both of during a short shoot.

Hi Paul Really appreciate you doing that, but I am bu@@ered if I can find them. Could you steer me in the right direction please? Many thanks Tom PS: Anyone other than Gordon fancy coming out to take some piccies sometime when the sun is shining?

Well I didn't even know anyone had taken a pic of Quest II on our recent adventure in Alderney, but I had a very pleasant surprise with an email from Maverick this morning with a superb new pic of Quest II. http://www.pbsbac.co.uk/photoalbum/displayimage.php?pos=-582 Thanks Martin, great pic of our baby wave jumping the wash of Tiger Lily, certainly beats the rather dull one taken by Mr "Lewis the Fish" last August. Next time, can you make sure the fat bloke stood in the back is out of the picture! This brings me on to the subject of boat pics. Everyone loves a good pic of their own boat in action. I have got a very good camera, Nikon D70 Digital SLR with 6.3m pixels (Paul D knows what it can do to the club website) and I have had a fair bit of experience being at the pointy end of the camera during photo shoots on boats. Would anyone be interested in doing an hour, half day or full day on the water with a number of boats or even just two boats? Each boat takes about 20 minutes to do a shoot and will involve approx 20 or so pics which can be put onto CD Rom. It involves me in a camera boat being driven by a skipper on a dead straight course and various hand signals by me to the boat being photo'd. Some shots will be very VERY close to the camera boat and needs a little nerve and no slowing or speeding up by either party, some will be high speed shots, some will be action shots wave jumping. I am happy to oblidge on a free day just for the cost of the CD Roms. Tom

Sam I think you need to speak to Markee B and he may (or may not) disclose the details of how he met his new "Lady Friend", Christina. Beautiful girl, bit big for my liking (I prefer them petite), but Mark took a shining to her.... Mind you, it has absolutely nothing to do with Crazy Fred's report on Bream fishing in windy weather... ...These threads seem to go off on a tangent a little.