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!!!!!

Seems like nothing's safe. Got back to my car parked in Hinton Road, Bournemouth on Wednesday evening to find the offside rear window smashed in, and the car ransacked. The amazing thing was they missed a laptop I had in the boot which was under a blanket (I never usually leave it there, and definitely won't in future!). The doors and hatchback "deadlock", so that must have made life harder and I think whoever it was might have been disturbed before finishing. Still cost me time reporting it and a late night cleanring glass/ taping up the window coz I had to make a long trip next morning (not to mention

This link will take you to a piece of free software that I can really recommend - it's a convertor for just about any unit - length, speed, weight, whatever: http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/ The usual disclaimer - I've no connection, other than being a happy user of this software. It's a very small download, and I've used it with various operating systems (now on XP) without any problems. I hope you find it as useful as I do.... (and yes - if you select the "Speed" tab and "knot" for the "Input" field, then select "mile/hour" for the Output field, then typing 1 (knot) in the input gives 1.15 as the output in mph and 22.5 knots comes out as just under 26 mph to answer Dan's original question, while 40 knots = 46 mph and so on) Enjoy! Dave

After a spell of illness earlier this year (hospitalised after a chest infection) and Saturday's aborted attempt (due to dead battery) I finally managed to put to sea today! My son and I set off from Christchurch and went out to the ledge, arriving about 10.30ish and dropping anchor a little (sensible!) way from a couple of charter boats. This was our first real outing in Alun J's "old" boat (bought by me last September) - now named Bobalong and proudly flying the club pennant with the boat name also; nice job by Trevor (Wedger's) missus! I'm pleased to say that we did manage to cach something (although the boat must be missing your expedition & catch rate Alun!). Within ten minutes of anchoring I caught a Wrasse of just over a pound in weight and about half an hour later my son caught one of over two pounds (just to upstage me!) Then it all went quiet except for a tiny pout that my son pulled in just before we packed up and headed back shortly after 2pm. Not a spectactular outing by club standards, I know (and I must confess we were hoping for some of the bream I've been reading about) - but still we went home happy that our first ever boatfishing outing wasn't a "blank", and big hopes for the future as we gain experience and (hopefully!) find some decent fishing marks.

How much of your "Road Fund Licence " (car tax) goes on improving roads? (Not forgetting the tax on fuel itself) Expect the same %age of any sea licence fee to be be spent on improving angling access/ sport! I pay more than enough taxes as it is, I'm fed up of government thinking up new ways to extract more of my hard-earned money to be wasted on stupid schemes and inefficient bureacracy. I'm against it (in case you hadn't worked that out!) - and have signed the petition (let's hope it gets as much support and attention as the one on variable charges for road use did!)

Priced some batteries today: Halfords wanted

Thanks to all for the advice - and to Alun for confirming my suspicion that it's just the age of the existing battery (probably, as suggested, combined with lack of use over the winter period) that's seen it off. I think that after five years service it's deserving of an honourable burial anyway (don't worry - I'm not speaking literally - I'll take it to the dump for recycling!). My son has offered to loan me a small car battery (sealed type) until I can get a permanent replacement, so shouldn't be any problem in getting out fishing this week even with bank holidays closing some shops. Thanks again, chaps - see you out on the water! Dave.

Oops! Would have been helpful if I'd put locality (I live in New Milton, but anywhere in/ around Bournemouth/ Poole is fine). I'm not sure of the difference exactly betweeen "Marine" and "Leisure" categories? I want to to be able to start the outboard and also run Nav lights/ fishfinder VHf radio etc. The Exide batery appears to be a sealed lead-acid type (not gel) - I just need an equivalent replacement ("maintenance-free, if possible!) Thanks Dave

Set out to launch at Christchurch today, but after getting the boat into the water I found the battery was flat. (Doh!) The engine (Yamaha 15hp) was serviced a couple of weeks back, and so I didn't think it necessary to check it - although I'd put it on a trickle charger for the previous 24 hours anyway. I managed to work out how to manually start start the engine (just had to remove a few bolts and covers) so that was useful practice for an emergency anyway! I abandoned thoughts of fishing but decided to take my (now nervous!) wife and son up and down the river etc. I thought the battery would have charged after a couple of hours running, but when I stopped the engine I still couldn't get it to start again (other than with the rope). It didn't even have enough oomph to drive the fishfinder (although I could run the fishfinder and (slowly) raise/ lower the engine on the power tilt when the engine was running). I took the battey off when I got home, but hooked up to a charger it doesn't seem to want to take much charging current (less than half an amp, where I would have expected it to take 3 -5 amps, at least initially?). So I think the battery (an Exide 85Ah Marine Leisure type) is probably dead? (I bought the boat last September and so don't know how old the battery was - possibly almost five years old, if original, so may just be "old age"!). Can anyone please suggest a good local source to buy a replacement as I've booked this week as holiday and want to get out fishing, if possible? Thanks.

Happy Birthday, Martin! I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to the meeting tonight - please convey my apologies. I'll buy you a drink next time out of my refund, when I get it (from Bob, I believe?), from the completed VHF course which you kindly arranged for me. Thanks for your work for the club members - I hope you're having a great day! Dave

Done.