Seamouse

Adam, you have a PM. Steve

Thanks, that'll do me. Some nasty crude trebles out there but the VMC ones look good (at a price!). Steve

Hi folks, I know this has all been said before but I'm hopeless with the search facility. What size treble do I want for presenting a lively under a float? Cheers, Steve

Hi Charlie, If any tickets are still available I'd appreciate two, but give priority to members first! Steve

Mrs M was hobnobbing last night with one of the women in the Skoda video. It took them five days to finish filming, by which time all that cake and Cova paste was knackered. Whole lot apparently ended up on someone's compost heap. I'd call it a waste, except that after twenty years of eating offcuts from the Domestic Goddess's creations I'm sick to death of bl**dy sponge cake! Steve

You are launching and recovering on mid to high water so even if the slips have been trashed by the weather a 4x4 ought to cope. If they've been cleared then a standard saloon will manage, it is getting front spoilers over low mounds of gravel that causes the excitement. Simple 3ft flowing trace for the hounds, 40-50lb bs in case they wrap up in the line, size 3/0 or 4/0 strong hook and nip the barb down to ease unhooking. A booby bead a few inch up from the hook doesn't put them off. Single whole squid is a good bait option, even if the pin bream are in full pirahna mode it'll last 10 minutes or so and 5lb would be enough for two anglers I'd guess. Live hardbacks are the only way to avoid the small bream, a crab trap by the slip will usually pick up half a dozen while you get ready to launch. Should be plenty of mackerel on utopia unless the 'storms' have dispersed the shoals. Steve

Hi Guys, SeaMouse is out of the running, Mrs M has booked sunday for visiting friends. At the moment though, there looks like decent weather saturday so I'll possibly be able to offer an up to date update (alliterally) saturday night. I'd back up what Charlie said, Utopia is wide open to the elements and as soon as you are approaching f4 from any direction is going to be very uncomfortable and 8 miles from home to boot. You are also on a fairly big tide, you can just about sit right through this one with braid and leads of 1lb 8oz-2lb but it'll be pushing along at the peak. Tide changes an hour or more before Nab Tower. On a westerly, the island offers best cover as advised. For a northerly, back of the island is OK but you might have a rough trip back to Langstone. Heading east inshore and fishing the inshore selsey reefs for bream/hounds is an alternative. Feel free to PM me for general numbers in the area as I don't really want to publish them. Steve

Hi Alun, Tempting thought if I can sneak it under Mrs M's radar. How much are you asking? Steve

Hence their older name of Sweet William, which was applied to tope as well. If the weather's good, SeaMouse will come down and join you guys. Steve

Eastney slip has ample free parking, the shingle issues have largely been sorted but it IS quite a steep slip. Dry two hours either side of low water on tides above 4.0m (Nab). The harbour bed is reasonably firm for launch but a low water recovery would be better roped with the car wheels still on the slip. Hayling slip is shallower in slope so kinder to cars on their limits, generally cleaner with respect to shingle and parking in the pub car-park is now free but there's limited space. There is a strong cross-current at mid-tide and the low water launch is as per Eastney side. A much busier slip, it can be heaving with PWC and WAFI at a weekend. Neither slip has any road access problems. It is a tenner or so to launch, payable at the Harbourmaster's office above the Hayling slip. He is pretty lax about collecting, especially at the Eastney side. Speed limit in harbour is 10 knots and it is a bass nursery area. Be aware that off east winner bank to port as you exit the harbour entrance. Keep due south until you clear the marker post at the end of the winner about a mile offshore. Steve

The engine is older than the boat, that's an earlier Bigfoot livery than my 2001 engine was. Steve

If you guys are thinking of a trailaway up east, here's an update. We fished last friday over towards Selsey, picked up six plaice to 3.5lb on the mussel beds. Fishing the deeper water for hounds and tope (not actually utopia, but the whole area fishes similarly) we had 8 hounds of which only two were under 10lb. No tope runs at all, while Moby had only a single offer that didn't hook up. That seems to be the pattern this year so far. The tope have barely showed at all, the hounds are in good numbers and unusually high average size. Slightly annoyingly, the pin bream have appeared a good month early and they are everywhere on the tope grounds, so hermit and peeler crab baits don't last long. We had all our hounds on squid. I'll have a look for the trailaway date in a second. If it suits the FPO's schedule of domestic chores, I'd be happy to come down with SeaMouse and help out? Steve

Saw you guys homebound on the road as I was towing the caravan south for a fishing-free easter. First Enticer rolled past, then just as I thought "OOTB was out as well" she went past as well. Boy was I jealous Steve

I had this last time out with the low water shingle bank at Eastney. Winched the boat on and the wheels sank to the axle before we'd finished. There was no way we could haul that out. I'd suggest taking a couple of planks along, as long as will fit in the car. Back the trailer on to them at the water's edge and you've at least a chance to get everything rolling before the wheels get onto the soft stuff and start to sink in. I guess there's a chance that the planks will kick up and whack the hull as you go over the end though, or that the rig will just bog down 5 yards further up the beach. To be honest, if it is that soft I'd have thought you are pushing your luck even with a 4x4. Anyone else any experience with this? Steve

Lovely looking boat, Adam. The smoothness over a chop compared with the 165 is something that really stood out when I test drove one. That alone should make a big difference to your travel (and fishing!) times. Best of luck with her. Steve

The 175 is double skinned so I'd guess any kind of skin fitting is going to have to be a transom job?? Even then, they couldn't put a drain plug in the Pro Angler as Paul reckoned it went through 4 different panels of GRP and he was concerned it'd leak into the sealed underfloor. Since you have a self-draining deck, I'd have thought the neatest route to water would be a flexible pipe through the scuppers? Final decider, I guess, is whether the pump will pull 'dry'. If it can only run when primed it gets awkward. Steve

Shropfisher, Shrimp rigs will catch most things in their day, but the South Coast does offer serious sport with larger species that respond better to more targetted approaches. You say you don't 'do' tope, of which there are plenty, but the rays and smoothhounds are worth playing with on light gear. A simple 50lb b.s 3ft flowing trace to a strong 3/0 or 4/0, baited with crab (hounds), sandeel, mackerel (rays) or squid (both species) could give you an exciting ten minute tussle. Just don't leave the rod unattended, hounds are masters of hit and run tactics. Steve

I'd say the answer is probably yes, you'll over-rev. Within 200rpm of the quoted WOT figure on a loaded boat would be near enough spot on. They say each inch of pitch adds a hundred rpm or so (?) but going from a 17 pitch to a 15 pitch on a 75hp put my WOT revs up from 4200 to 5200 That'd presumably be because the smaller pitch allowed me to reach the power band, which then gave me more rpm and MORE power. Not an issue on your boat where you are already getting near on full rpm. Other points - prop design really matters. The old style evinrude 17 pitch gives 4800rpm, the new monstrosity just 4200rpm. Plus I think maybe stainless props run more efficiently. although I can't quite see the logic in that myself. Nice to have a new toy to play with though. Any idea what she'll do on a flat day? 32kts? Steve

Nice one Adam, have fun kitting her out. Steve

I'm Warrior's very own Jonah. Apart from a guy who liked to beach the boat at full speed, I'm the only one they'll admit to breaking a Mk II 165. Just bad luck. Lots of it Steve

I won't know until I've seen them in the flesh, but it is an optional extra at the moment. Not cheap, either. This is on Rapide trailers though, not Indespension. At present, at least, Warrior are using Rapide. I'd be very interested to know the relative merits of the two makes of trailer. I did notice that the Rapides have bearing savers, albeit not the same design as those on the Indespension trailer. Paul complained that his own discs had seized on when left for a while in the weather but that's not surprising really. The advantage ought to be that the pads are easy to access to break the rust free and there should be no other moving parts to lock solid. Time will tell, but I'm hoping they've been sensible about sealing the business end of the Bowden cables. If you are up my way on business after I take delivery, feel free to drop in and take a look. I'm sure I could rustle up a coffee Steve

Option 1 for me, towing a 7m boat may be feasible but it isn't easy. Launch and recovery are all going to be so much more fraught than with a smaller boat that you'd only want to do it once a year or so, for holidays or for maintenance. OB vs stern-drive is really a fuel cost argument, isn't it? Wonder how long (if ever) before we get a proper diesel OB? Steve

Two Lookfar survived almost three years of hard use before she failed catastrophically. I was told that was a manufacturing fault, an oversize beam contacting the hull where it shouldn't caused a local failure that spread. Warrior rebuilt her under warranty, she was like a tank afterwards they put so much reinforcement in. She's still going strong up in Hartlepool. SeaMouse I treated like a baby cos I was a bit embarrassed already about breaking 'their' boat. 30 hours of deliberately gentle use and the port side produced two 4ft crack lines Had to take a deep breath before I picked up the phone and told them the glad news. Got to hand it to them, they've been excellent. I'd apparently broken their brand new design Pro Angler in 6 months flat and they never even hinted that I might be a total maniac. Turned out the rear roller cradle had been supplied a full roller width out of spec. The hull is like the 175 in design with a reinforcing matrix bonded over the line where the rollers run. Out of line rollers put the stresses during recovery onto a section not designed to take them and it has flexed and cracked the gelcoat. I'd guess the damage will run deeper too, though I picked it up straight away so there is maybe a chance it may be just cosmetic at this stage. Anyway, I'm being given a replacement 165 in March. I've upgraded to a disc brake trailer to allow me to put the wheels in deeper (less load stresses that way) without trashing the brakes and I'll be doing my best to be gentle with her at sea. If I break this one as well, I think I'll pack it in and take up bowls instead Steve

Hi Dave, I'm promised early March. Can't fault Warrior, they took it straight in and promised a replacement even before they'd worked out what was wrong. All being well, I'll be afloat again before the hounds come back. Difficult not to be paranoid about my luck with hulls though. I'll be spending the next couple of years as a distant dot in everyone else's wake and bleating over the VHF about how you are all going far too fast for the conditions Steve

Hi folks, Since we're on the subject of names SeaMouse has gone, she's being replaced by Warrior under warranty after Indespension messed up the roller spacings on the trailer. New boat will be......SeaMouse II. I can't face changing my forum name etc etc all over again. Steve