Ray imo your best course of action would be as Neal (Tarlach) and Jim (Small Fry) say, keep the money and save.
You can get your fishing fixes in the short term by hitching/crewing on other club boats.
Obviously it's your call and boats are a very personal and emotive subject. Good luck with whatever you decide to do
The only fish worth reporting on Madness today were blonde rays
Jim = 19lb 12oz I think, Jim will confirm
Martin 16lb12 + 16lb both came up backward which made them bloomin hard work
Tigerfish: Alun, Terry, Stuie, Steve
Reel Magic Dave, Kev, Paul
Alfresco Charlie and Ian
Fisheagle Allan, Coddy and Dave L.
Kingfisher; Chris and Blake W.
Marichelle , Mick & Chris
Madness, Martin, Jim
Endeavour3 with gummage, mike hall ,david cotton( non member) mike halls guest( non member)
I love the look of the Barracuda 9 and at one point I thought of buying one. The biggest downside for me was the cost and inconvenience of fueling a petrol boat. Petrol on a mid size boat is an issue. If you are doing inshore trips and using 70/80 litres per trip it's either eye wateringly expensive from a marina assuming you can find one that stocks it or will take a lot of toing and froing with jerry cans then transferring via a syphon tube of funnel and all the fun that entails. The fuel used on my Rodman would be similar in amount but less than 2/3rds the cost and convenient as most marinas stock red diesel.
If you want sea a review with details of fuel consumption watch the following vid:
http://www.boattest.com/review/beneteau/3014_barracuda-9
Madness is 8.7 metres at over 5.5 tons and has a 10kg Delta look alike with about 12 metres of 8mm chain with 220 metres of rode which works well for us
But that is not the main job of the chain Rob. The main job is to weight the shank of the anchor so the angle between the anchor and the boat is shallower therbye assisting the anchor to get a grip. The bigger the boat you have the more important this is. A Longer/heavier piece of chain also helps reduce snatch. The secondary job is to act as a counterbalance in the Alderney set up.
Dean and I will be taking Madness out on Saturday and have space for one other. Not sure what we will go for yet but it will be a leisurely day leaving for the 7:30 bridge returning at the latest on the 16.30 bridge.
If interested post here pm or phone first come and all that
Got talking to Diane on Sat and she said you might be up for a trip, just shout mate would be more than happy to have you for company, I'll pm you when we are going out