Put the boat in for repair Thursday morning 9am and had it back by lunch! Yes it's true!
Additionally, the repairer didn't just grind and re-weld ....
But added in extra aluminium bar to strengthen the whole keel
Best thing yet only cost me a little more than twice the cost of last repair
But..... Instead of the 20cm hairline crack repair of last time or the 45cm I thought this current crack to be
This hairline crack ended up being 120cm long once he got into it
So 6 times the length and only a bit more than twice the previous price - plus extra support for the keel added
It's a little bulky under there but the guy fixed so I don't have to come back - that's great service!
So all the bits are going back in this Sunday - decks, fuel tanks batteries etc
Hoping to get a new sounder/GPS combo to put in while this happening
So this means I might actually be in the water within the week, maybe even a calm weekday afternoon.
Look out fish!
Refit images next blog.
If you're after someone to do some aluminium work, can't recommend this guy enough.
http://www.seacodemarine.com.au - Jim is the guy you're after.
Well, got boat stripped down of everything I could (motor and console left - plus a little deck at front
I drained the 100litre fuel tank and removed it, removed the seats, casting platforms, and batteries,
So today I booked the boat in for the repair of the keel hairline crack in two days time!
which means I could be back on the water in a week or two!
The guy booked to do the repair, is a professional plate boat builder
so it will most likely cost me more than the backyard bloke I used last time but the new guy is going to add a little aluminium plate to strengthen it all near the keel- this sounds good as the better the repair is it lessens the chances of the crack reoccurring.
But as always good work of quality is always going to to cost a bit more but hopefully not too much!
Wife as usual is nagging me about costs (remember her current fanaticism about our rural block purchase and building a house on it over the next year)
but a $1000 or so (hope no more than that!) is a lot less than a new hull and the all the work to get all the motor and such transferred. While certainly not as good as a new US fibreglass bay boat, the $1k or so for the repair is heaps less and at least it floats
Got to remember to slow down in rough chop!!!!!
so I don't have to do this again!
Quite frustrating being off the water at the moment, really frustrating!
(especially when you hear of all the fish being caught currently)
Well, this is what happens when you regularly use a boat specifically designed for shallow calm water (like for east coast lakes and estuaries) on Darwin Harbour which while it can be quite calm most mornings, chops up into fair sized waves for most trips home across the harbour in the afternoon.
I hope you can see the 45cm long hairline crack along the front portion of the keel section of my boat in the image here
I have heard, and read a long time ago, that a few other aluminium boats (mine is a Stessl) have also developed similar stress fractures in their various welds from the constantly flexing of the light aluminium pressed hulls.
I believe in affect of the punching through the chop waves too much - having said that it is a huge repetitive impact punching through wave after wave and what aluminium weld could handle such constant punishment over extended periods of time
I had the same problem two years ago with this boat but the fracture was a little smaller in length and had it re-welded readily. (might also been the reason why the guy sold the hull to me so cheaply!)
I have been told that I will always have this issue now it has happened twice - as you can't properly weld from just the outside of the hull (due to rib placement on inside etc).
So I have been looking at a bigger boat (dreaming really!), particularly something in fibreglass.
Used to have a fibreglass boat in my previous life on the east coast (had a Hewes bonefisher) but not working in IT anymore with money to burn like I had in the 90s. Secondary school teaching might be more fulfilling and a heap less stress but definitely is not paid the couple of hundred bucks an hour I used to earn being a computer systems analyst and project manager.
I was also thinking of making a flats boat like I did when I was a 17 year old teenager (1980). I took this 25foot old cruiser with a seized diesel inboard (rotting away on the farm down the road), chopped its guts out ribs and all with a chainsaw and grinder. Then placed the right amount of weight in the right places to represent motor, me and fuel. Then put it in the dam on the farm and marked the hull 9 inches above the water. I then got the chainsaw out again to cut off the excess above that. I then put a few panels of ply on top for casting platforms, lots of sanding, grinding and shaping, add in a cockpit and a low profile centre console, add some layers of fibreglass and gel coat to hold it all together, copiuos and I mean a lot of sanding, and sanding, and sanding til my arms almost feel off. Add in a second hand 60hp motor and I was SWOFFING the flats of Moreton Bay and Jumpinpin on a great little 17foot flats boat.
From a new boat perspective......
Currently love looking at and drooling over the Cobia 21 bay boat - awesome 'turn-key' fibreglass boat for round US$43k plus transportation to Australia ($10-15k) - great value even with the falling $AUS. Such a boat if made in Oz would be $70k plus!
With such a boat I can still do my tropical flats SWOFFING in Darwin and Bynoe harbours, but also head offshore to chase sails, big macks and longtail tuna off Dundee and Peron Islands - and not even worry about ugly chop on the way home - yes I will still have to slow down a bit to soften the ride as in any boat but no rigid joint welds in aluminium to get a hairline crack in.
But with the wife super keen to finishing off the purchase of our rural block in February 2015 (and start to build on it at end of year), I doubt any new or used boat purchase is going to happen in the short or medium term (if at all! - might have to go back and work in computer industry! - as much more money per hour than teaching). If I can find the right large cruiser hull to attack with a chainsaw, the idea of making my own boat looks very interesting (use the 60hp four stroke I currently have and sell the hull once its repaired, to pay for the cruiser conversion).
But when you think about it, you can get a second hand even almost new pressed aluminium 5m side console with a 75HP four stroke for $25-$35k (for which will most likely get the same problem of keel weld fracture and wont even be built with SWOFFING in mind) and in comparison you can get a superb SWOFFING specific brand new boat with a 150four stroke for a little more, Plus with all the bells and whistles as standards rather than extras - why wouldn't you buy the overseas boat?
Furthermore, even the price of a heavy plate aluminium of similar size is well over $45k (if not $55k) more once you add all the bells and whistles and a decent motor big enough to push the heavier boat even more.
You also must compare that the price of just a new 4 stroke motor here is Oz is almost the price of the whole package of some types of "turn-key" bay boats in the US using the same motor. So you are basically getting an awesome boat & motor - for the price of a motor here in Oz - i.e. free fibreglass boat. (we also must ask why this is so - it cant just be quantities sold in the US)
I will just have go out and buy a lottery ticket - wishful thinking given the poor statistics and chances of winning!!!
So at the moment trying to find someone to re-weld the keel. Updates soon.
Am hoping the guy who did it last time can do it again.
A very high cloud mass of a storm is easily seen in the predawn
light to the north of the city of Darwin, it has heaps of lightning and rolling
thunder. Shouldn’t impact us and our endeavours for a morning’s SWOFFING.
Based on my outing two days ago we are heading straight to
Lee Point to fishing the dropping tide.
Hopefully the baitfish will be present and being corralled against
the lines of reef, one to three hundred metres offshore of Lee Point by queenfish,
trevally, tarpon and macks. We didn't find any tarpon but we are not
complaining! (keep reading to see why!)
The water is a little rough - most likely after effects from the series of the nightly coastal storms common this time of year, this morning’s was currently moving offshore to the west.
We get side tracked a few times by working birds on the way to Lee Point-
mostly small grey mackerel schools that are very flighty and inconsistent in
their movements, and getting anywhere close to the feeding macks, and the birds
above them, sees them dispersing faster than we can get there - quite
frustrating. Regular deckie, Peter and I call them one of the ‘MMMM’ fish
(Maddening Mullet Mackerel and Milkfish) in other words fish that frustrate us
when targeting them (usually for no result!).
We catch a virtual aquarium full of species at the various rock
bars along the way to Lee Point - but no size - all tiddlers if quite colourful
and various. Stripies, baby blue bones, mouth almightys, baby coral trout, and
10 other species I have no idea what they are named.
On our eventual arrival at Lee Point the wind is dissipating, the
water was also calming by the minute, and the birds are working in large flocks in several locations nearby. The unique type of sporadic slashes and splashes on the water’s surface clearly indicate mackerel again. But
they are all over the place. Up and down before we can even move to chase at
times. Even though and despite being an MMMM fish, we give chase, and we chase,
and we get the occasional cast in when they are too busy to notice our approach,
and we even get a few macks to hand.
We manage (that is fluke) a few other fish or two. A good queenie, a small giant trevally. I get one good queenie that goes nuts zipping all over the place, then we see the brown smudge of a shark chasing it explaining why it was acting such. I let the drag way off and the queenie alludes the shark but once back into the fight and tight lines again - the shark and this time a mate return. The first shark takes the back half of the 60cm queenie in a cloud of bursting redness. The second shark takes the rest and my fly, my backing streams off rapidly and we are about to give chase when the 20lb leader parts as would be expected with a 3m plus sharp toothed reef shark is connected to you on a mono leader.
It is now I realize I left my cap that has the head mount for my action cam on the kitchen bench at home – it would have been great to get that action on video! Lucky I brought the railing mounting clip for the cam.
Once a vast pack of 60 -70cm plus queenies hangs under the boat for a while - following flies but not eating them. BUGGER! an awesome sight seeing so many queenies is such crystal clear water.
Questions arise as to fly choice - size colour action, materials - anything to improve the hook up results. We hedge our bets and fish a few different flies. I settle on the 'no see um' mini calf tail clouser baitfish imitation in size #1 and get good hook up rate. But I also used 50mm long surf candies in blue/white, and also in chartreuse/white, for good results too. The queenies seemed very keen on the chartreuse/white surf candy while the trevs liked the tiny white clouser. The macks didn't seemed to care and frustrated our fly experiments by ignoring whatever we cast to them, then a minute later took the same fly with carefree abandon.
We come across a bit of a pressure wave readily seen in the almost calm conditions – most likely caused by the outgoing tide pressing around and over a submerged rocky reef - on the bottom corner of the reef as the tide flows, fish at constantly busting up the surface attacking the baitfish, along the back and front of the reef more fish are devouring baitfish with abandon. The mackerel are working back and forth and we catch a few, some quite large, as they come within casting range of our anchored boat. Due to lack of wind we can cast in any direction as the fish break the water surface to indicate where to cast to. We catch good queenies to 60cm, trevs to 45cm, and macks to 60-70cm. After a while neither of us have time to count fish caught – it is just cast, strip, “I’m on!", wind in line, net fish, de-hook, toss fish back, cast again – repeat! Over and over. Simply one of the best times we have had on the water up here in Darwin. We would have preferred some larger ones but hey, it was still awesome SWOFFING!
The action for the next 2-3 hours was epic to say the least. Constant double hook ups, rarely was a cast then retrieve done without a follow, several hits or a hook up. We actually were exhausted catching fish and sat down to drink and eat while the fish continued to bust up baitfish schools in every direction from our boat and we were too tired and sore to even put in a cast to the nearest water surface bust up.
Awesome SWOFFING to say the very least. The action was so great we switched over to surface flies for a more visual experience. To have ten to fifteen fish slam your fly in a 30m retrieve was soooo much fun, it should be illegal. Hook ups didn’t even matter. But you never went too many casts using the floating lines and crease flies without a rod getting bent to the handle!
And do you know that we never saw another boat actually fishing and all this only 30mins boat ride from the centre of Darwin city.
Yes it was hot, sweaty and humid but with iced drinks, a few nibbles of food, full and proper sun protection, and resting every now and then to sustain you in such weather conditions - the SWOFFING was out of this world.
On a side note I manage a new PB for a species – this a 68cm Long Tom, schools of them were also into the small baitfish carried along by the fast tidal flow.
The fishing finally slowed to only a few bust ups every few
minutes and we thought we would try for a difference experience but with the tide
very, very low we had few choices. We visited Weed Reef but I have never ever
seen it that exposed and so far from the water. Wickham point too.
For the last hour or so of this outing we hang off the inside
gravel bar off Shelly Island waiting for the tide to start to flow in and create
a pressure wave. Just like two days ago – like
then it again had small trevs (but this time no queenies - ????) hanging
off it readily taking any fly swung across and through the pressure wave.
Peter was had it physically from heat ( and I wasn't far behind) and all the fish we had
caught. I had a muscle issue in my casting hand from two days of fighting heaps
of fish (so sad isn’t it!).
So, we called it a day and dragged the boat out of the water and
headed home – very pleased with ourselves.
I also had permission from the wife to fish the next day (24th
Dec) but I was so fulfilled with my SWOFFING (and physically sore), I stayed
home and tied 60 or so more surf candies and 30 tiny white calf tail based clousers.
One bit of bad news, on removing bungs from boat back at home
after this outing, almost 60-100 litres of water streams out almost what seemed
endlessly from inside the boat. Crap and bugger me!
Seems I have another crack in my hull to be re-welded. That means
no boat based SWOFFING for a while.
So the next few blogs will be focusing on boat repair updates and
fly tying – might finally do the tying sequences for that Gold Bomber Fly I
have promised too many times!
Finally, based on this outing, I suggest despite the hot and humid
weather conditions – cover up for the sun, have plenty of fluids (water not
beer!) and go catch some fish -
preferably with flies you have made yourself!
Quite an overcast morning with storm and lighting off to the
north
Luckily this storm passed around us much to the relief of my son Bradley and his
girlfriend (Casey) visiting from Sydney. Given it was Casey's first time to Darwin, she was still pretty enough paranoid just about Crocs jumping into the low profile boat I have but I assured her I had not seen any in the
harbour for quite a while (funnily I did see a 3.5m one off East Point two days
later!).
After a quick ‘look see’ at Shelly Island and Wickham point
for naught surface action wise, we popped over to Weed Reef
We got a few smallish giant trevally but nothing consistent. With the wind dying back to almost nothing, we then
crossed back over harbour for Katlyn Bay.
I was hoping to maybe find the Golden Trevally I have found
in the bay previous trips but alas no Goldens this day. When first there, there were a few medium sized Milkies (70cm or so) hoovering
down algae scum off surface in one corner of the bay. However, given my guests
were not SWOFFING nuts like myself, I left the harder to catch Milkies alone and instead we chased the
small queenies marauding some very small bait at the other end of the bay.
The baitfish being attacked were smaller than I have seen before, only about 3-4mm deep in the body
and about 35 to 40mm long. My son was using a small as possible soft plastic but could not match the hatch size wise and still have something with enough weight to cast
on the threadline outfit he was using (seems he has forgotten all the fly
casting I taught him when I was married to his mum 15 years ago - but then again he was only five at the time!).
So I place a small
ball sinker onto his 20lb leader that was tied to his main braid line and tied on a small calf
tail based clouser onto his rig. Instant success to say the least. Even his girlfriend (not at all a fisher person on her own account) caught a
couple of the small but plentiful skinnies continually bursting the surface
with frenzied feeding activity.
Wanting something larger for them to
tangle with, we headed towards East Point but nothing seen there so continued
on to Lee Point.
As soon as we got to the reefs of Lee Point, a tight
pack of about 20 sea birds could be seen working the pressure wave edge created by the dropping tide
as it pushed up against the rocky outcrops that parallel the Lee Point
headland. We caught some nice 30-40cm GTs and some 50cm queenies while casting to the water under the squawking hovering birds. However, the stiffling
hot and humid conditions as well as the fight between wind and tide creating a
rocky motion in the boat, got the best of Casey and so I headed back into
the harbour dropping her off at Nightcliff Jetty where my wife picked her up and took her home. The son
and I headed the boat towards the boat
ramp at East Arm to meet them at home.
However the tide was way way out
0.5m and the ramp was high and dry. Giving at least an hour before we could even think about hauling the boat out of the water.
Great! More fishing.
We popped back to other side of harbour
to Weed Reef again. I haven't been on the harbour at such a low time and we saw reefs and sand bars that I didn't know were even there. At Weed Reef we managed a heap of small trevally – (Giant and Fringed Finned). There were also heaps of really big (and I mean big mother big!) Milkies actively feeding the area.
These were not working in waves sucking down algae off the surface but viciously slashing and
turning to get at whatever they were eating. They were not interested in the algae flies I have caught them on before, nor the tiny
white clousers cast repeatedly in their direction after a boil on the surface used in the hope they were eating the tiny baitfish we had seen
earlier in the day at Katlyn Bay. I have had a large Milkie off Lee Point take a large clouser (lost that one as quick as I hooked it!) while chasing queenies, so they do take flies other than scum flies.
Frustrating ourselves with these big
Milkies eventually saw us heading back to take the boat out but a short stop at
Wickham Point gave us some more mini GT action and queenies to delay going to the boat ramp. This occupied us
for about an hour. Eventually seeing the time was
way after we should have been back, we again started towards the boat ramp at
East Point.
However, when zipping past the
wharf side of Shelly Island we saw a heap of slashes and bust ups on the surface off the corner
of the island this had us stopping for another few casts (or twenty!). Two hours later we
eventually headed for the boat ramp, as it took that long for the action to slow down (it wasn't because I was worn out and too old for catching fish as my son suggested!)
The water on this side of the small
island near the loading wharf comes from deep water up over the shallow rock
bar on this side and goes back down into more deep water. The effect on the
water created all sorts of pressure
waves and turbulence – one that must disorientate the baitfish making them easy prey for predatory fish like the GTs and queenies patrolling this stretch of water.
see diagram here abouts for location tips
Cast after cast received hits and
takes - giving bent rods and heaps of laughter and smiles from us both enjoying some good father/son bonding. It was great action in the strong flowing incoming tide – for which the hooked
fish used well to their advantage to make them seem much bigger than what actually came
to hand.
My son and I had an absolute
blast casting our flies into the the tip of the disturbed water and letting the
flies drift along the face of the pressure wave before starting a staccato type
retrieve. Every cast receive some sort of attention. Many, many times we had
double hook ups and raced each other to
get the fish in and cast before the other could. We didn't keep score, just enjoyed the constant action and father/son rivalry --- AND HEAPS OF SLEDGING! over dropped fish or a retrieve that didn't get a take from the frenzied fish.
One fish my son caught a 40cm queenie with a couple of small bites out of its back (quite recently from looking at wound). Which was quite interesting
to my son who had to take a picture of it.
So a slowish day to start with but still lots of fun and a few fish from each spot we gave a cast or two - that ended in a great last couple
of hours for the trip of non-stop ‘a-cast-a-fish’ action.
Here is a bit of a video clip of the
days trip.
I will be out again in two days time
with my regular fly fishing deckie Canadian Peter Cooke.
Blog report and a bit of video on
that outing - up on this blog soon.
School out for the year, house painted, moved into the bigger side of house, cleaned granny flat we have lived in for last 5 years - so its now fishing time!!!
Popped out early Tuesday morning
Took a couple of local young blokes out to see what was around
Plenty of small trevs around Weed Reef but inconsistent as they moved about heaps
Keen to chase the flies but not so keen to hook up!
when one hooked up always 10 or so similar sized following along
A few really big milkies blowing up surface and their sickle tail cutting the surface. - regularly fascinating the new deckies.
The young blokes are not SWOFFERs - yet!
So used my flies on spin gear to get their trevs
meter of leader material tied to a swivel and small running ball sinker above the swivel, with fly on the end of leader. use like a jig retrieve
however, I was catching two or three to their one - so they are keen for fly casting & fly tying lessons in 2015
The weather was blowy first up. But calmed off around 9am as the wind changed directions
But for the most the wind seemed always in the wrong direction no matter where & what structure was being cast at.
Though the wind was nice as it was was mega hot and steamy. It cooled the sweat constantly rolling down the body (and into the eyes). High levels of sun protection needed on the water this time of year.
The young guys got small giant trevs and a few small estuary cod
Still Enough to inspire them towards more fishing and eventually some SWOFFING!
I got the same trevs a& a few small queenies but nothing worth bragging at the pub about
Out with son who is up from Sydney, this Friday (but more tide movement than today so might be better results). Look for blog of that outing soon.
(Currently sitting in Darwin airport waiting for his plane to arrive)
Instead of the 20cm hairline crack repair of last time or the 45cm I thought this current crack to be
