Andy135

So, I have been using some different products to my normal this time around. I have butt connectors with heat shrink, and I am also using a glued heat shrink. They don't shrink as easily, so bought a heat gun and that solved the issue.
Having issues with text and image placement this morning.
First part is to crimp the butts
 

More done yesterday. Late start as had a funeral to attend by which time, was so hot, I waited til about 4 before heading to the boat.
 

 
Fair bit done again. Bilge wires run through and spliced, Plotter box relocated, consul trimmed and nailed down, vhf and search light power cables run through, battery cables rerouted and started terminating wires.

Finally the stars of work schedules, weather and the boat not being broken have aligned and I should be out Sunday

The plan was to hit the same mark we'd had good success on a few weeks ago for stingrays and smoothounds. We had the boys along chauffeuring us to the mark.

Lovely conditions gave a smooth ride out. 

We dropped the hook in less than 3m of water, and with clear vis we could make out rocks, cables, abandoned anchors and even starfish on the sea floor.
What we could not spot however, was fish. No stingrays, no smoothounds, no nothing. Neil had a decent run, typically on a scratching rig, which snapped him off after a couple of minutes. But other than that it was a desert. We moved into slightly deeper water where we rustled up a few bream.

Unfortunately we had a rather negative experience next. Not far from our mark, what seemed like the entire Solent population of WAFI's were having their annual Teddy Bear's picnic, and decided to use Tarlach Too as a marker buoy to see which of them could pass the closest to us. We must have been buzzed by over 10 yachts at least. I lost a rig to their idiocy and several bouts of fruity language was deployed as they passed within a gnat's whisker of us. Truly disappointed by their navigational behaviour.
We decided to head back in, somewhat salvaging the day by a high speed blast back that saw the boys reliving their antics from when they were a good few years younger.



Amazing to see how much they've grown since they first met on board TT, and no matter that they're now almost "too cool for school" they still enjoy a faceful of sea spray on the way back home 😀.
Despite the lack of target fish and poor form from the yachts we still managed a good few giggles and some lively worm-related banter with the boys. Thanks as always to @Saintly Fish for hosting us 👍.

Busy old day today. All the old shot ripped out, consul repositioned, radio repositioned, started to install fish sinder. New busbar fitted along with a fuse box, main battery lead reterminated and all the lights on fresh wire that was rerouted..... Also bought a new cabin light and fitted it. Everything tested ok, lights are far brighter than they were before too.......
Tomorrow will hopefully see the cabin end sorted, with radio, search light and bilge to wire. Also we have no horn, so that needs to be sourced. All the hardware can then be final fitted and sealed where necessary.
Will drag the throttle/gear control down and get that fitted up too then can check the harness length.
Will grab some stills later to post up

Slow postage getting the softer black skids but all cut and fitted now and marine carpet on the bunks. Starting to collect so many trailer parts now, I could almost build another !!!!

Tomorrow, will be off to AED to get some supplies, then get the wiring at least tidy.
Will need some terminals, waterproof connectors or terminal box and some wire and poss some switches. Some gauges would be nice at some point , but that'll keep for now. There is enough work to be going on with and keeping this a quick turn around.
At some point, this boat will be a major project, but for now, just want it on the water and safe.
A box of trailer parts landed today, was going to do that tomorrow, but think it will be get the wiring sorted and dash back in kinda day.

So, got back to boat this afternoon. Cockpit floor flooded again and a bit in the bilge.
Bilge pump not working, so decided it was time to see what was going on there.... Well, what can I say??
The wires from the switch were about 0.5mmsq! the wires under the deck were twisted together , bit of solder then taped over. About 4 joins per wire all told. The manual wire wasn't even connected....... Basically, because of the thin wire at the switch end, there was a massive voltage drop to the pump. Never good.....
So..... We then started looking, and we found, botch after botch in the wiring. There are 2 10mm sq battery wires connected to the isolator that were just hanging in the breeze just waiting to short out on something, not even taped up!! There is a negative busbar but the positive was on a bunch of chocolate blocks. There were wires pulled tight all over the place, including an extra battery pair that was powering up the dash. Most wires have 3 or 4 joins in them, light as f**k and none of it fit for purpose.
I did connect the heavy lead up to the negative busbar, and ran the VHF aerial cable  so it ran by itself rather than bunched with LED lighting wiring which could cause interference.......



 

It was one of those days, everybody doing more or less the same thing, so thought I'd try a jelly on a 6/0  just to be different, whether it "worked" or not I can't say, but it didn't deter the fish which means I will be more likely to try it again. Not something used in our area much. Will get more chance to experiment when my own boat is in the water
 

Cheers Mate. It was actually a good day, plenty of banter and tea and biccies. Andy would have loved it, hundreds of doggies caught between us!!

First one of the year today, out on High Flyer 2.
Plan was to get out after some maccy, then on to some bass and tope....... The weather had other ideas. We arrived to a 14mph SW wind, so we headed to some bass marks to hopefully pick up some mac. However, we were getting the crap kicked out of us and no fish showing. We headed in a bit to try some marks that were showing fish, however, the wind was pushing us off the drift and the fish were having none of it. We ended up coming in right close, to a hole that has saved many days out. With the tide falling away, we were hitting a steady stream of doggies and one smoothie boated. The tide eventually turned and ran hard enough to stop the boat swinging, and the digs pretty much disappeared, but more whiting. I decided to try a jelly worm tipped with mack and had my pb smoothie, prob only around 4lb, but only ever had pups before now. The doggies returned, a seal poked his head in to watch and some idiot was seen paddling in from well the wrong side of scroby sands on a kayak..... He eventually made it in against the switching wind, god only knows where he had been.....
That was pretty much the day, we got wind burn, sun burn, salt burn, drenched in rain and sea spray and everything in between. Even the seagulls passed up the day to remain in town outside the chippy.......
Out again in a couple of weeks weather permitting

The First picture is of  Lozz with the first ever  200lbs   common skate caught off a Kayak      second   picture  is of  a old  mate who  id taken up to loch crinan    to see if i could get him a  skate   this is another fish of 200 lbs    third   picture is of Paul   with his first 200lbs   skate   forth picture is     my old mates from up jockland    big Rab   Fin unhooking  and me sat in the back corner   having just caught a 225 lbs  skate   fifth   picture is of me bent into  a  skate  on my own boat  ( seahog seajeep )   and in the last picture  here is the fish      tight Lines Alain        all the fish where  caught  using wind-on rubbing leaders and hook traces i made   

So, little update, managed to get the dash out, someone has screwed the switch panel in and fitted it right under the cabin ledge, so no chance of removing screws..... After that, I used my vacuum brake bleeder and removed around 120 litres of water that doesn't drain to the bilge. Rained again today so will give an idea of how much rain water gets in to those areas.
Looks like a bit of judicial drilling will be occurring very soon. I want this thing draining properly before it goes anywhere near the sea!!

Do you find you always get the same braid or ever noticed the same brand changes at all ? Ive had friends buy ebay braid and been happy with, then bought from the same site and had terrible results. Ive also had friends by what they thought was genuine saltine braid in  1500m spools on obey which you could break with ease. 
Apologies on the earlier post, had a few days in and out hospital which I find frustrating. Still good to see some of your pics. If the pics are too large to post, you can take a picture of them with your phone perhaps and resize down if you have more. Its funny as we are starting to see large skate in my area now, not rays but true skate like what you posted. What's more, one of the deep water investigators recently filmed skate at 3000m deep off the coast here, which was a huge surprise to the researchers. 

Cheers Neil, but I was gonna knock up some LED lighting. Thanks tho.....
Parts ordered today, keel rollers, new winch and strap, tyres and bunk carpet.

Looks great day out and a feed bream is so good to eat 

The plan was to hit the same mark we'd had good success on a few weeks ago for stingrays and smoothounds. We had the boys along chauffeuring us to the mark.

Lovely conditions gave a smooth ride out. 

We dropped the hook in less than 3m of water, and with clear vis we could make out rocks, cables, abandoned anchors and even starfish on the sea floor.
What we could not spot however, was fish. No stingrays, no smoothounds, no nothing. Neil had a decent run, typically on a scratching rig, which snapped him off after a couple of minutes. But other than that it was a desert. We moved into slightly deeper water where we rustled up a few bream.

Unfortunately we had a rather negative experience next. Not far from our mark, what seemed like the entire Solent population of WAFI's were having their annual Teddy Bear's picnic, and decided to use Tarlach Too as a marker buoy to see which of them could pass the closest to us. We must have been buzzed by over 10 yachts at least. I lost a rig to their idiocy and several bouts of fruity language was deployed as they passed within a gnat's whisker of us. Truly disappointed by their navigational behaviour.
We decided to head back in, somewhat salvaging the day by a high speed blast back that saw the boys reliving their antics from when they were a good few years younger.



Amazing to see how much they've grown since they first met on board TT, and no matter that they're now almost "too cool for school" they still enjoy a faceful of sea spray on the way back home 😀.
Despite the lack of target fish and poor form from the yachts we still managed a good few giggles and some lively worm-related banter with the boys. Thanks as always to @Saintly Fish for hosting us 👍.

The plan was to hit the same mark we'd had good success on a few weeks ago for stingrays and smoothounds. We had the boys along chauffeuring us to the mark.

Lovely conditions gave a smooth ride out. 

We dropped the hook in less than 3m of water, and with clear vis we could make out rocks, cables, abandoned anchors and even starfish on the sea floor.
What we could not spot however, was fish. No stingrays, no smoothounds, no nothing. Neil had a decent run, typically on a scratching rig, which snapped him off after a couple of minutes. But other than that it was a desert. We moved into slightly deeper water where we rustled up a few bream.

Unfortunately we had a rather negative experience next. Not far from our mark, what seemed like the entire Solent population of WAFI's were having their annual Teddy Bear's picnic, and decided to use Tarlach Too as a marker buoy to see which of them could pass the closest to us. We must have been buzzed by over 10 yachts at least. I lost a rig to their idiocy and several bouts of fruity language was deployed as they passed within a gnat's whisker of us. Truly disappointed by their navigational behaviour.
We decided to head back in, somewhat salvaging the day by a high speed blast back that saw the boys reliving their antics from when they were a good few years younger.



Amazing to see how much they've grown since they first met on board TT, and no matter that they're now almost "too cool for school" they still enjoy a faceful of sea spray on the way back home 😀.
Despite the lack of target fish and poor form from the yachts we still managed a good few giggles and some lively worm-related banter with the boys. Thanks as always to @Saintly Fish for hosting us 👍.

tell a lie  the  guys are  daisy chained off  my boat  common skate fishing     guy in the middle  ( Lozz ) was the first guy on a kayak to catch a 200 lbs   common skate       video   should be on youtube       (  scottish monsters  )  
 

John   with his fish 
 

Do you ?? 
We only ever see your daughters fish!!

the pics on my old camera where too big        the pics on my new camera seem to be ok    and down load on here no problem    just tried   down loading a few old pics   from years ago      all these fish where caught in the ( sound of Jura )      the pic with the kayak lads is me towing them back in after fishing 4 miles   down the loch     ive no idea why   i can down load  pics now      but ive thousands of them     tight lines Alain 
 
 

It took me quite a while to get my first bream, Andy was the first with success so I had pressure to perform. Turned out that I had nothing to worry about though with a final tally of 2 - 8 in my favour😎. Although his first was the biggest 
 
Even the boys fished for themselves this time, baited up and everything!! 
 

 
A great bbq was had that evening, we only had butter and lime on the boat, but the fish was delicious!! 
 

The plan was to hit the same mark we'd had good success on a few weeks ago for stingrays and smoothounds. We had the boys along chauffeuring us to the mark.

Lovely conditions gave a smooth ride out. 

We dropped the hook in less than 3m of water, and with clear vis we could make out rocks, cables, abandoned anchors and even starfish on the sea floor.
What we could not spot however, was fish. No stingrays, no smoothounds, no nothing. Neil had a decent run, typically on a scratching rig, which snapped him off after a couple of minutes. But other than that it was a desert. We moved into slightly deeper water where we rustled up a few bream.

Unfortunately we had a rather negative experience next. Not far from our mark, what seemed like the entire Solent population of WAFI's were having their annual Teddy Bear's picnic, and decided to use Tarlach Too as a marker buoy to see which of them could pass the closest to us. We must have been buzzed by over 10 yachts at least. I lost a rig to their idiocy and several bouts of fruity language was deployed as they passed within a gnat's whisker of us. Truly disappointed by their navigational behaviour.
We decided to head back in, somewhat salvaging the day by a high speed blast back that saw the boys reliving their antics from when they were a good few years younger.



Amazing to see how much they've grown since they first met on board TT, and no matter that they're now almost "too cool for school" they still enjoy a faceful of sea spray on the way back home 😀.
Despite the lack of target fish and poor form from the yachts we still managed a good few giggles and some lively worm-related banter with the boys. Thanks as always to @Saintly Fish for hosting us 👍.

The plan was to hit the same mark we'd had good success on a few weeks ago for stingrays and smoothounds. We had the boys along chauffeuring us to the mark.

Lovely conditions gave a smooth ride out. 

We dropped the hook in less than 3m of water, and with clear vis we could make out rocks, cables, abandoned anchors and even starfish on the sea floor.
What we could not spot however, was fish. No stingrays, no smoothounds, no nothing. Neil had a decent run, typically on a scratching rig, which snapped him off after a couple of minutes. But other than that it was a desert. We moved into slightly deeper water where we rustled up a few bream.

Unfortunately we had a rather negative experience next. Not far from our mark, what seemed like the entire Solent population of WAFI's were having their annual Teddy Bear's picnic, and decided to use Tarlach Too as a marker buoy to see which of them could pass the closest to us. We must have been buzzed by over 10 yachts at least. I lost a rig to their idiocy and several bouts of fruity language was deployed as they passed within a gnat's whisker of us. Truly disappointed by their navigational behaviour.
We decided to head back in, somewhat salvaging the day by a high speed blast back that saw the boys reliving their antics from when they were a good few years younger.



Amazing to see how much they've grown since they first met on board TT, and no matter that they're now almost "too cool for school" they still enjoy a faceful of sea spray on the way back home 😀.
Despite the lack of target fish and poor form from the yachts we still managed a good few giggles and some lively worm-related banter with the boys. Thanks as always to @Saintly Fish for hosting us 👍.