hotshot

First outing of the year for myself and my son, Jonathan, with Allan Green on his Merry Fisher "Kind of Magic" - and, like the boat name, so it proved to be! Having left Poole harbour and motored to Allan's chosen spot to anchor, within 30 seconds -seriously! - of dropping baited feathers over the side I was into a pair of mackerel and a scad! On a pretty much flat calm sea and under rather grey skies and, at one stage, a light shower we all caught fish including several bream to almost two pounds, mackerel, my scad (only one!), dogfish, pouting, gobies and at least four types of wrasse! Jonathan didn't even get time to eat his sandwiches! About mid afternoon we caught some more mackerel and dogfish on the drift, but a threatening mist/ fog bank and quiet aaction led us to pack up and head for harbour again. Many thanks to Allan (and his wife - the patient chauffeur!) for a thoroughly enjoyable day's fishing (followed by a tasty evening meal as a result!)

Bobalong now SOLD - thank you for looking.

Hi Allan! Thanks for the kind offer. As you know, it's just too good a boat to spend it's liife sitting on a trailer - I'd rather someone get more use and fun out of it. I've just started a course of some pretty strong medication (very big hits of steroids etc) which hopefully will help sort my health out and let me get back to at least some fishing in the future - so you may get a call from me sometime! Cheers!

Sadly, due to ill-health (just three launches in the last two years!), I am selling "Bobalong", my Orkney 440. Blue hull/ white topsides open motor/ fishing boat, cuddy with windows and captain

It's hard to believe the sheer nerve/ cheek of the people who tonight stole the Yamaha 25 litre petrol tank (and tried for the battery too!) from my boat parked on our driveway right below our bedroom window, with my wife and I in bed and the bedroom light still on! Our double-glazing masked the noise they were making (rustling cover as they removed it) - fortunately our neighbour had her bedroom window open and heard it/ them! Full marks to the police who had an officer there within 20 minutes of my phone call (so about 30 minutes after my neighbour alerted us) but, as you might imagine, not much hope of catching them. To add insult to injury, the tank was full...!

The full article is here, if you'd like to see it (but don't read it if you're feeling depressed....): http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n2.../ncomms1013.pdf Dave

Thanks for the info, Mike - Allan is ordering one for me (and one for him too!) - should stop me having to do THAT awkward job again! Now all I have to do is sort the trailer (it seems I may need a new beam axle) - there's always something....! Dave.

Filthy, dirty, horrible job - but now all done! It was really awkward trying to get a good measure of grease into the pivot tube without getting everywhere - I managed to limit the mess to only just about everywhere as opposed to absolutely everywhere! I'm a bit surprised that there's no grease nipple on the tube - I would have thought it might be beneficial? Anyway, the steering now works freely AND the engine started first turn! I was using a hose and "muffs" and checked the cooling water was coming through ok (tell-tale stream from top seemed fine) so I think that's good to go! Yippee! Thanks to all for your advice - hope to see you soon out on the water.

That's really spectacular! Thanks for posting the link. Dave

Thank you all for your advice/ encouragement (and to Rob for the manual!) - much appreciated. I'm going to get some marine grease tomorrow (oops -later today!) and have a go at getting the steering going again. Thank you also for the link to the trailer bearings - can marine grease be used here (to resist salt water attack), or shoudl I use the copper grease mentioned in the link, or some other (high temperature?) grease, do you think? Is the bearing saver a tool you can buy, or something that's been made up especially for the particular bearings? (My trailer is unbraked and uses Alko (I think) bearings). Thanks again, Dave

Hi! I've been a member of the club for a while now (ever since buying Alun J's previous boat!) but, due to my wife's serious illness the last year or so I've been unable to get the boat out for over a year (and couldn't leave her to attend the club meetings -sorry - I even had to take voluntary redundancy to care for her). Thankfully, she's now on the road to recovery, so I was able to attend the AGM last week and have just started to give some attention to the boat, and look forward to getting on the water again! (Hopefully, look out for me and "Bobalong" - an Orkney 440 - on the water sometime this season!) I'd had the engine serviced the previous summer (2008) and it only had a couple of hours running time before the boat & engine were left standing on my drive until I was able to start checking it out last week (I'd removed the battery a year ago and kept it connected on an Optimate charger, so that seems ok). The engine is a Yamaha 15hp 4- stroke (circa 2001) with electric start & trim/ tilt. The good news was the engine turns over on the electric start(yay!) although I haven't tried actually starting it yet, and the trim/tilt (which I was worried might have seized up) also seems to work ok. However the (wheel/ cable) steering was locked solid and I was only able to get it to move at all by undoing the cable and moving it back as far as I could and uncoupling the steering arm and gradually working it around (having applied dismantling lubricant) to try and get the "piston" part to slide in the barrel (pivot tube?). As I'm trying to work it to and fro to get free movement there's old grease and rusty gunge coming out of the tube, but I'm not sure if it's ok to try and remove the "piston" altogether to clean the insides properly (I'd think I'd have to unbolt the engine and try to angle it somehow to get clearance to pull the rod right out anyway)? Is it ok to do that (any "gotcha's"?) or should I just get out what I can and then pack it with new grease? Also, will the impeller be ok after this amount of time unused, do you think (it was changed in the lst service) and are there any other checks I should make before trying to start it? (I've got muffs to connect it to a hose and would like to try it out once I'm reasonably sure it's all ok) I realise I'm going to have to check the trailer/ bearings before going back on the road, but that's another story...! Any advice gratefully received (or if anyone has a paper/ CD manual I could borrow that woud be a help?) - thank you. Dave

Hmmm.... I'm not quite convinced it's good value for money, but as there appears to be no other viable national representation, I'll give the benefit of the doubt and support option 3 (which, if I understand it correctly would result in a

Could I have hotshot@pbsbac.co.uk please? Thanks, Dave

I'm interested in how to tie the "perfect loop" you mentioned (no pun intended) - I appreciate it's difficult to describe in words - I just wondered if you might know of a link to a picture/ description or whatever (I've tried a google search but no success). Thanks, Dave

So that's going to ensure all dealings are above board and that standards are adhered to? - NOT!!!!!