Afishionado

Without a shadow of a doubt the best slip in Poole with all the amenities as well. Water at all states of tide easy parking etc etc. IMO worth the

Quote..strong enough to hold you in a big tide but weak enough to give way under greatly increased load, this is not difficult The thing is with many small lighter boats it is not easy or safe to put a 'greatly increased' strain on an overly strong weak link. There is a world of a difference between an 18ft boat weighing 1000lb or so and a heavy displacement craft surging up against a locked in anchor suddenly tripping or even worse not tripping and pulling the bow down. IMO (and that of others over the years) there should be no slack in the line to the base of the anchor and the trip should be just strong enough to trip when the anchor line is vertical and bouyed by the Alderny set up. Mad Mike PS. in 40 odd years of owning various boats and trying most things, I stick to what works safely and well.

The bridge is not so much of a prob going out Trevor, it's the coming back that is the problem. We come back mostly at week ends and often between the 5.30 pm and 7.30pm time of day. If I have forgotten to time it to avoid the bridge opening time we are faced with a phalanx of WAFI's and neuvaux rich pratts in bl00dy great plastic cruisers rotating round waiting for the opening of the bridge. Inevitably when it does open the larger (downtide) bunch of boats get the red light allowing the uptide lot to come through first. However this is not realised by some twits who blast forward against the red light and oncoming boats honking furiously. Then when the green light does eventualy come on there is a 'Grand National' style charge to be the first through and strangely enough it is always the slowest boat that is first through (I haven't figured out why this happens yet?). Anyway this boat goes through the bridge very slowly causing a huge bottleneck crush and then continues to turn hard port towards the wood yard. At precisely the right moment to cause tha maximum confusion and mayhem this boat then swings hard round Starboard, broadside to all the traffic still barging it's way through the bridge and proceeds to fit into a nose on mooring on the West Quay road side! The best advice is modify what you can to be swing downable or removeable and be sure you do not have to wait for the bridge to open. Mad Mike

enter 'Abu left hand wind reel' on an ebay search and you will find stuff like this.. http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Abu-TGC6001C-Left-Ha...1QQcmdZViewItem Mad Mike

Andy admits.......It wasnt untill after we got it we found out that rollers on our trailor were Knacked & we didnt need it anyway ! Andy! You are a true weekend trailer sailor of the finest caliber That remark guarantees life membership of the guild of cock up merchants of which I too am a member. Any way you reckon one of these electric thingies is worth a go then? Mad Mike PS Gazza, my boat is a Sea Hog Samurai which is similar to the Warrior in weight. My problem is deminishing strength

Where can you get a 'leccy winch for 60 squid ? Have a look at ..... http://motors.search.ebay.co.uk/electric-w...pZ1QQsacatZ1293 Mad Mike

My! thatsabigun Mrs!!! That looks a real beast and I guess well up on the

As my body slowly disintergrates around a brain that still feels it's only in it's mid thirties, I have to think about technology giving me a hand. I have seen on ebay and other places electric (12 Volt off the car) powered winches that fit on the winch post of the trailer. Apparently they can pull 5000lb on a level pull and recover at the rate of 6ft a minute. Has anyone any experience of one of these doohickies, any opinions as to their worth in the terms of function? Answers please on

Duncan I agree, but I didn't want to be the first to say that it was a daft idea Yes there should be no horizontal tension on the cable ties/weak link at all. The weak link should only come under tension when the pull on it is vertical. Mad Mike

I know! I would love to know the whole story. How the hell could either he go below and leave an obviously unskilled helm or be down there that long she could get so close (hitting) the rocks. Didn't she yell for help earlier? I wonder how long the marriage will last! Mad Mike

A common cause of these symptoms after a period of inactivity over the winter months is a sticky thermostat. At low speeds even the restricted flow through a closed thermostat will be sufficient to cool the engine. However more throttle will create more heat which needs a greater flow of water to cool the engine. I would sugest removing the thermostat and then re run the engine at home to check the running temp' with it out. It is perfectly OK to run the engine with no thermostat at all, in fact I have removed mine due to a similar problem last year. If you need a mobile O/B mechanic to call and sort it, I can thoroughly recommend Sam 07810 561520. Mad Mike

You can still set the anchor with a weak link trip even without the Alderny set up. Just fix the anchor line to the base of the anchor (so it would be upside down if you hung it up in the air) then lay the anchor line along the shaft of the anchor and fix it to the top ring of the anchor with a cable tie or a couple of turns of light line. If the anchor is jammed just pull the line up tight and make it fast at the bow and then motor (gently) forward against the strain untill the cable tie/string snaps and the anchor turns upside down and pulls out of the snag. Mad Mike

Ferry responds to yacht's Mayday The couple abandoned their yacht after it ran aground A ferry travelling to the Channel Islands has been involved in a yacht rescue off the south coast of England. A couple were rescued by coastguard teams after they were forced to abandon their 47ft (14.3m) yacht when it hit rocks at Anvil Point, Swanage, Dorset. The fast-cat ferry Condor Vitesse heard the Mayday relay call on Monday morning, whilst travelling from Poole to the Channel Islands. The woman, from Wilts, and the man, of Richmond, London, were not injured. Their yacht Wellworthy was blown high onto the rocks in blustery conditions as they sailed along the coast from Lulworth Cove, Dorset, to Lymington, Hampshire. The Portland Coastguard helicopter took part in the rescue operation The man managed to jump from the cliffs they were clinging on to into the Swanage RNLI inshore lifeboat, but the woman had to be airlifted to safety by the coastguard helicopter. The Condor Vitesse carried on with its journey to the Channel Islands. Jim Anderson, watch manager for Portland Coastguard, said: "She (the Wellworthy) got caught by bad weather and sea conditions that pushed her into the rocks. "It may have been a steering fault and she could do little about it but we don't have the full picture. "They were cruising, they had been staying over night in Lulworth Cove and they were making their way back to Lymington." A Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) spokesman said the yacht was breaking up on the rocks.

I think I read somewhere that there were two types of halibut. One the very large ones we normaly think off. These are found in northern deep cold waters. But there is a smaller halibut that is caught off the east coast of America and Newfoundland more or less on the same latitude as the UK. Mad Mike

Steve, you can't go wrong if your first method of using a weak line is to make it too light. If you anchor up and it trips it's self within minutes use a bit thicker line or double the line you have. If it trips again on it's own go up another thicknes or tripple the line. You only need to do this exercise once as at some point you must find the thickness of the weak link that is ideal for you. Personally I prefer to use that sort of polythene orange twine as it is dead cheap (literaly 2p a ton) and two turns of it on the weak link work perfectly for me on an 18' Samurai. Mad Mike

I usualy crush the barb down with a pair of pliers. This makes, as said before, unhooking LSD's much easyer, and I have never had a fish come off before the net. Mad Mike

One can buy them on ebay and even with the delivery charge they are cheaper than most chandlers. Mad Mike PS Try http://search.ebay.co.uk/bruce-anchor_W0QQ...Q3aTB2Q3aUKQ3a2 There are 29 at the moment

Oooooooooooow you brute! Mad Mike

Bl00dy gorgeous! Here's wishing you many happy hours fishing in her. Mad Mike

Gripfill/No more nails etc used to be solvent based, therefore petrol should (eventualy) disolve them and petrol will do no harm to the GRP. Personaly I think you are on a hiding to nothing with trying disolve it or rub it down by hand. I would go the solidified residue with a disk sander or grinding wheel. One can be supprisingly delicate using a light touch with an angle grinder. After getting the gunk off I would reface by smoothing a layer of Isopon P38 over the abraided area and when this has set and been hand sandes I would recolour with ordinary paint. Mad Mike

I have just fitted a whole new deck/cockpit lining using B&Q laminate bathroom flooring I looks just like a laid teak deck, but as the surface is a bit shiny I am wondering if I should router a sort of diamond pattern into it? What do you guys think? Mad Mike

Tom taunts .............The thought of featuring Mad Mike scares me though. We may need to wheel him in gagged, bound and in a straight jacket otherwise we will have to wheel Jim out... ....gagged, bound and in a straight jacket! I allus said you were a right bitch Tom , or should I say Muddybum Mad Mike

Paul D tells me.........Mike, Let me know how you get on. I had zonealarm and got fed up with it. Microsoft have a firewall built into Windows XP SP2 , so surprised they are advising to use Zonealarm. Thank you for the offer Paul, I only hope that I don't need to take you up on it What sort of prob's would I get with Zone Alarm? I don't even know what it does or what happens when the alarm goes off I just followed the instructions a welly nice man in Mumbai gave me. (Dank you welly much) Mad Mike

Does he mean me? Mad Mike

I have had the most difficult time getting rid of this virus attack. Apparantly it also attacks your antivirus and deletes sections of it which disable your firewall. In the end I phoned the Microsoft help line and they aided me through the whole thing. This included restoring the PC to an earlier date, deleting the remains of my infected antivirus, downloading a fresh A/V suite, together with two new thingies, one called 'Zone Alert' and the other 'Ewido'. What they all do/did is beyond me but all is working OK now. I am sure Paul D will be able to explain more clearly than I. Mad Mike