duncan

whilst I am also happy to recommend Richard (he looks after Phaeton from time to time) there are elements of fitting a windlass to a small boat that benefit from a 'personal' approach. when I removed mine (installed by a professional through the distributor - not Richard!) after 1 year I found that none of the cuts or holes had been sealed and, given they were through gel to glass to ply etc it was no surprise that the ply had soaked up water etc if I had been installing it I would have overdrilled, filled and redrilled the holes as well as sealing all the exposed cuts etc in a way I don't blame them as time is money etc so it's just one of those ju=obs where a fe minuted here and there rather than a straight hour (the cut and drill bit at the front) makes sense.

there are a few 1 way tidal spots on the reef in C Pool.......very usefull if the wind if fresh but from the right direction at times! often find thornbacks there for some reason

yet another plan comes effortlessly together.............(well that's how the story reads!) couldn't resist playing with the pics.....would have preferred playing wth the fish though

should be ready for the 48hr then.........2 hrs for the engine, 1 to bolt on the drive, few wires and a few pipes and she's good to go! as for the 'screen' all the best fishing boats are equipped that way - hatteras, bertram etc etc few more hours if you are installing windows otherwise.

sorry - if I was going to be afloat I would of course enter but it's not possible

talk about puns..............

awesome...............

yep LD reels (only use 1 star drag nowadays the calcutta 400). whilst I tend to mess about with most of the others from time to time in much the same way as star drags I leave this one alone and have the 'strike setting' at 20lb which gives about 10lb when it's up against the first stop against an old spring balance. As the line is relatively fine for the reel it would need a lot of line off the reel before the effective drag increased much. this was all set up with wreck conger in mind - not tope! As for porgy.....well it's odds on I never see another one of those - or if I do he will lake a bait on 15/20lb class gear and a nylon trace!

Tom's hit the location on the button - about a mile NW of 'the tope mark'

Tom, One of those 'I could so I did' issues. As the fish headed slowly away I upped the drag to it's max setting which is maintained at 20lb - and it continued on it's way at the same speed for about another 10 secs............ Penn Formula 15kg / Grauvell stand up stick. At the time I was confident that the rest of the set up would handle the loading but with hindsight it was obvious that the fish didn't realise it was hooked so it could have 'kicked' and this might have caused problems. I was only using this set up as I was too lazy to set up my preferred tope rod which was still in it's bag down below - this one was in a holder and seemed like a good idea at the time - nearly inspired decision but I needed a good hook up away from the teeth (which I didn't get). Next time......thanks all for the suggestions and information. I have made up some 150 / 250 traces and will cross my fingures.

agree - it's fine for the large cats, and works OK in light conditions for shaft drive boats as long as the rudder is well protected under the hull. given that the boat occassionaly rides up on the buoy anyway I wouldn't want my sterndrive and the mooring chain getting intimate. if you are really worried about the slip slop then just float a length of warp round the bow with 4 lengths of pipelagging on it - breaks up the wavelets nicely. another trick is to have someone snore loudly onboard...........

having suffered a clean bite off when a suspected porgy grabbed my mackerel last week I woundered just how strong the hook length needs to be to survive? clearly the fish took the bait whole and closed it's mouth preventing the circle hook from getting a hold outside the teeth! 50lb wire was clean cut about 20 seconds (a lifetime holding the rod) of the fish swiming up and slighty across the tide but I am sure it didn't realise it was attached to anything as it just moved slowly against the drag (set at 20lb!!!!!!!) and my arms. I have made up a few with 3 ft 150lb wire / 6ft 250lb mono - but someone else has suggested bicycle brake cable...............mind you their idea of hooks was a little agricultural too. Appreciate any advice.

Glen Need a bit more info to be specific but 1. it is sometimes suggested that you can use a lighter anchor set up for fishing because if it drags it doesn't matter......... 2. this is fine if you are fishing alone, nowhere near a wreck or snag, and have your main full sized gear ready to deploy if a safety situation suggests it. For most of us that means fishing with our main anchor that won't drag! The weight of the anchor is only a part of the overall rode and for a boat like yours you would normally be looking at a 7.5kg anchor on 10m of 8mm chain and then as much 12mm nylon or polyester (not polypropolyne) rode as is appropriate for the waters you cruise. If you were planning on staying overnight on the anchor I would go up to a 10kg (only about

just make sure you wire the port and starboard together and the all round white seperately. that way you can switch on the all round as an anchor light seperately or both switches on when running.

agree - I use an Igloo 54L and it will keep crushed ice for 4 days almost without regard for the OS temp. amazing things just ordered a new catch for it though - mind you it's 12 years old!

not likely to be found anywhere on Alfresco I bet! Gordon - you have my sympathy re hauling 2lb leads attached to dogfish; surprisingly ache creating

sounds like a nice day out all round Al, thanks for the report. pretty much all the rays have 'thorns' and for many people 'thornbacks' becomes a fairy generic term for the odd fish they catch. we are very fortunate as you have a reasonable chance of catching most of the 'common' species in the waters around Poole. spots - spotted or blonde dark pattern lines - undulate light pattern lines - small eyed none of the above - thornback! (or possibly cuckoo etc)

it's called 'cruise control' and apparantly many many people use it I am not one despite most of my recent cars having installed as standard. I am certainly not against autopilots - I was just proffering an explanation as to the 'how come' question raised here. The patch falls bang on a straight line between Poole and the solent.

the issue is a combination of autopilots and you sitting on a direct line between Poole and the western entrance to the solent. get the same issue with yachts - wind permitting they make the one tack ; straight through the fleet. generally even those that do think twice will not see any obvious route that clears all craft so ....... please note that none of this is in anyway judgemental - just pointing out the obvious. oh - and the autopilot issue is that if they go of course to go round 1. it starts beeping 2. they can't reset the course easily as they haven't read that part of the manual so they try to avoid course changes

looks like I will be unable to fish either weekend - despite my original plan being similar to AWOL............. on the other hand I do expect to be over in the CIs again before (or just after) then.

"AWOL waiting for large ship on return" interesting concept...

James, Probably best if you get yourself a copy of the 12v bible by MK Brotherton (good cheap basic primer) or Motorboat Electrical and Electronics Manual by JC Payne (bigger!) In principle you will have engine starter direct to battery, auto bilge circuit direct to battery and everything else via a bettery isolation switch and then a fused distribution board for ancillaries. This is a huge generalisation. And why '3 sets of running lights' ?

Indeed come November I'll fill up over there instead I can't be exact about my consumption figures until I fill up but best estimates are that for the 20.4 engine hours run we consumed 280 litres. A lot of these are at tickover/drifts so lph isn't hugely relevant but we probably ran a similar mileage, and for the return trip we were definitely trimmed in and bashing through!

Paul a little difficult as you are making many points or asking many questions at once. as Coddy points out propguard is a physical device designed around swimmer safety primarily for small OB motors - not I believe what you are looking at here at all. putting aside the actual metal of the prop a rope cutter of some sort is recomended not ot save the prop but to prevent the boat becoming disabled on shaft drive boats. returning to your OB - manufacturers install 3 blade props for a reason - they are the best compromise available. you can add a 5 blade to increase the hole shot, or a 4 which is often a little smoother running but neither is likely to add to the top end (unless you have the gearing wrong with the current 3)

Marsel II, AWOL, Alfresco, Court Jester and Phaeton. I'll leave people to post their own catch reports when they return but from Phaeton we managed 2 new pbs and had a lot of fun - unfortunately we had to return early and headed back direct from the Schole after wishing Alfresco luck on their next drift.....only to get a text relating to a certain 20lb fish. At least I now have a target to go at! Fishing was hard and the key seemed to be sticking at it! We had 7 species on Phaeton including turbot for Dave, a pb 40lb tope to me and 4 weavers (inc a pb!). I also lost what I assume was a huge tope; we chose to drift so it wasn't using the tide but simply swam away uptide taking line of a drag set at 20lb for over a minute. The sense of anticipation associated with this fish having been hooked up on serious gear - Gravell stand-up, Penn formula 15 65lb XDS Fireline, 150lb rubbing trace, wire snood to 16/0 mustad circle - became, bluntly, nausea when something 'failed'. Recovering the gear the wire snood was cleanly cut through about 2 or 3 inches above the hook........... Conditions over there on Sat and Sunday were excellent with most of any sea being tide created. Overnight in Braye Harbour wasn't great in small boats as the wind got up and there was a constant swell. The run back Sunday was fine although we were trimmed in a little and had the windscreen wiper running pretty constantly. Mark from Alderney angling was a great source of help and inspiration - thanks Mark.