Ed.

The missus and I reached the 1770 Ausfish Meet and Greet and had dinner at the local tavern that evening, met a fellow Ausfisher and the three of us headed out the next morning towards Lady Musgrave Island, only managed to get about 10 Nautical miles out as the seas were nasty, the swell was a only a  couple of meters high but coming in at about 5 seconds apart, so as we started to plane we had to ease off as we would become airborne and crash in the bottom of the next trough. At one stage both my anchors nearly came out of the holders, so we tried to get some bait and failed, so trolled for an hour or so and no success, we then decided to call it quits and started to head back in at a very sedate speed as the swell picked us up and increase our speed so had to back off, then back up on the plane and back off, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Chewed up a heap of petrol, about 50l for 24 nautical miles, at that rate we would probably have no reserve for the trip back even if we made it to the Island. Looks like the windy conditions will be with us for our entire trip so we are just doing the tourist thing and spreading our cash within the local economy, I may have even put on a few Kg's with all the coffee and cheese cake I have consumed since arriving here! Some of the local cafes have some real nice cheese cakes, did I mention I like cheese cake!
Anyway it looks like I can give up on the idea of boat fishing  until I get back home, the weather forecast is predicting the same weather for the rest of the trip. Might throw a line in off the rocks on the inside of the inlet if I can get motivated enough, not on the ocean side though which is what the pictures show. Those pics are from about 80m up.

You could use the Marine ply and give it a coat of waxed polyester resin or vinylester resin on both sides, that would greatly increase the life of the board. Ideally you should add a layer of fiberglass first, if you added a layer of glass to both sides it would also stiffen the board, If water can't get to the ply it can't rot! The ply would also add a level of sound deadening.
Having said that, the ally sheet is simpler than above as it is just cut and fit.

We  going to drop in to there yesterday as we went past on the way to "coffee and cake" at the Getaway Cafe, but fortunately they were closed, I say fortunately because Liquors are my other vice! and it may cost me a small fortune by the time I leave.😁 Most likely I will be paying a visit there before we leave here!😀
That Cafe has a really nice garden.

The missus and I reached the 1770 Ausfish Meet and Greet and had dinner at the local tavern that evening, met a fellow Ausfisher and the three of us headed out the next morning towards Lady Musgrave Island, only managed to get about 10 Nautical miles out as the seas were nasty, the swell was a only a  couple of meters high but coming in at about 5 seconds apart, so as we started to plane we had to ease off as we would become airborne and crash in the bottom of the next trough. At one stage both my anchors nearly came out of the holders, so we tried to get some bait and failed, so trolled for an hour or so and no success, we then decided to call it quits and started to head back in at a very sedate speed as the swell picked us up and increase our speed so had to back off, then back up on the plane and back off, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Chewed up a heap of petrol, about 50l for 24 nautical miles, at that rate we would probably have no reserve for the trip back even if we made it to the Island. Looks like the windy conditions will be with us for our entire trip so we are just doing the tourist thing and spreading our cash within the local economy, I may have even put on a few Kg's with all the coffee and cheese cake I have consumed since arriving here! Some of the local cafes have some real nice cheese cakes, did I mention I like cheese cake!
Anyway it looks like I can give up on the idea of boat fishing  until I get back home, the weather forecast is predicting the same weather for the rest of the trip. Might throw a line in off the rocks on the inside of the inlet if I can get motivated enough, not on the ocean side though which is what the pictures show. Those pics are from about 80m up.

We  going to drop in to there yesterday as we went past on the way to "coffee and cake" at the Getaway Cafe, but fortunately they were closed, I say fortunately because Liquors are my other vice! and it may cost me a small fortune by the time I leave.😁 Most likely I will be paying a visit there before we leave here!😀
That Cafe has a really nice garden.

The missus and I reached the 1770 Ausfish Meet and Greet and had dinner at the local tavern that evening, met a fellow Ausfisher and the three of us headed out the next morning towards Lady Musgrave Island, only managed to get about 10 Nautical miles out as the seas were nasty, the swell was a only a  couple of meters high but coming in at about 5 seconds apart, so as we started to plane we had to ease off as we would become airborne and crash in the bottom of the next trough. At one stage both my anchors nearly came out of the holders, so we tried to get some bait and failed, so trolled for an hour or so and no success, we then decided to call it quits and started to head back in at a very sedate speed as the swell picked us up and increase our speed so had to back off, then back up on the plane and back off, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Chewed up a heap of petrol, about 50l for 24 nautical miles, at that rate we would probably have no reserve for the trip back even if we made it to the Island. Looks like the windy conditions will be with us for our entire trip so we are just doing the tourist thing and spreading our cash within the local economy, I may have even put on a few Kg's with all the coffee and cheese cake I have consumed since arriving here! Some of the local cafes have some real nice cheese cakes, did I mention I like cheese cake!
Anyway it looks like I can give up on the idea of boat fishing  until I get back home, the weather forecast is predicting the same weather for the rest of the trip. Might throw a line in off the rocks on the inside of the inlet if I can get motivated enough, not on the ocean side though which is what the pictures show. Those pics are from about 80m up.

The missus and I reached the 1770 Ausfish Meet and Greet and had dinner at the local tavern that evening, met a fellow Ausfisher and the three of us headed out the next morning towards Lady Musgrave Island, only managed to get about 10 Nautical miles out as the seas were nasty, the swell was a only a  couple of meters high but coming in at about 5 seconds apart, so as we started to plane we had to ease off as we would become airborne and crash in the bottom of the next trough. At one stage both my anchors nearly came out of the holders, so we tried to get some bait and failed, so trolled for an hour or so and no success, we then decided to call it quits and started to head back in at a very sedate speed as the swell picked us up and increase our speed so had to back off, then back up on the plane and back off, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Chewed up a heap of petrol, about 50l for 24 nautical miles, at that rate we would probably have no reserve for the trip back even if we made it to the Island. Looks like the windy conditions will be with us for our entire trip so we are just doing the tourist thing and spreading our cash within the local economy, I may have even put on a few Kg's with all the coffee and cheese cake I have consumed since arriving here! Some of the local cafes have some real nice cheese cakes, did I mention I like cheese cake!
Anyway it looks like I can give up on the idea of boat fishing  until I get back home, the weather forecast is predicting the same weather for the rest of the trip. Might throw a line in off the rocks on the inside of the inlet if I can get motivated enough, not on the ocean side though which is what the pictures show. Those pics are from about 80m up.

The missus and I reached the 1770 Ausfish Meet and Greet and had dinner at the local tavern that evening, met a fellow Ausfisher and the three of us headed out the next morning towards Lady Musgrave Island, only managed to get about 10 Nautical miles out as the seas were nasty, the swell was a only a  couple of meters high but coming in at about 5 seconds apart, so as we started to plane we had to ease off as we would become airborne and crash in the bottom of the next trough. At one stage both my anchors nearly came out of the holders, so we tried to get some bait and failed, so trolled for an hour or so and no success, we then decided to call it quits and started to head back in at a very sedate speed as the swell picked us up and increase our speed so had to back off, then back up on the plane and back off, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Chewed up a heap of petrol, about 50l for 24 nautical miles, at that rate we would probably have no reserve for the trip back even if we made it to the Island. Looks like the windy conditions will be with us for our entire trip so we are just doing the tourist thing and spreading our cash within the local economy, I may have even put on a few Kg's with all the coffee and cheese cake I have consumed since arriving here! Some of the local cafes have some real nice cheese cakes, did I mention I like cheese cake!
Anyway it looks like I can give up on the idea of boat fishing  until I get back home, the weather forecast is predicting the same weather for the rest of the trip. Might throw a line in off the rocks on the inside of the inlet if I can get motivated enough, not on the ocean side though which is what the pictures show. Those pics are from about 80m up.

You could use the Marine ply and give it a coat of waxed polyester resin or vinylester resin on both sides, that would greatly increase the life of the board. Ideally you should add a layer of fiberglass first, if you added a layer of glass to both sides it would also stiffen the board, If water can't get to the ply it can't rot! The ply would also add a level of sound deadening.
Having said that, the ally sheet is simpler than above as it is just cut and fit.

You could use the Marine ply and give it a coat of waxed polyester resin or vinylester resin on both sides, that would greatly increase the life of the board. Ideally you should add a layer of fiberglass first, if you added a layer of glass to both sides it would also stiffen the board, If water can't get to the ply it can't rot! The ply would also add a level of sound deadening.
Having said that, the ally sheet is simpler than above as it is just cut and fit.

Here is some info regarding the Drag washers from the web. You could try the Dura drag washers but again I don't think that you will gain any significant drag increase. Lapping or sanding the metal drag washers generally only improves the smoothness of the drag only in other words when the drag is up tight and the line is still being pulled off, it will prevent the drag from shuddering or jerking. If you have any grease on your HT-100 washers it might help if you remove it, but that's about it, your reel is only designed to put out so much drag and that's it. If you had Felt washers you could get better results by switching to carbon washers, but different brand of carbon will not do anything in my opinion.

If you wanted something big for just game fishing, trolling or ballooning but bigger than the Penn Fathom 30 2 Speed (the one on the right), there is this  used Makaira  20 2 speed in WA $375 delivered you may want to have a look at.
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/clarkson/fishing/okuma-makaira-gold-fishing-reel-214061/1252475163
however have a look at the pics I put up,  it will be as big as the middle Makaira 30 but in a narrower spool, so same drag (55lb on full) just less line capacity. It really depends on what your definition is of unstoppable, I mean how big a fish are hoping to stop? But as an all round big reel I would go for the Makaira 30 size as it will give you the extra line capacity.
https://www.freddys.com.au/collections/overhead-reels/products/okuma-makaira-overhead-reels?variant=29246157258845
This about the cheapest I have found and if you sign up you get another $10 off so it will be $689 and I think that they have either a 5 or a 10 year guarantee .

Jon, no breather necessary, it is just for storage, fill it up, go to where I am going and completely drain fuel from it to the main tank. Done!
I would have liked to have it have it connected  the main tank but as that is sealed under the floor there is no way to get to it. An alternative way would be to connect it to the main fuel line via a T- piece where it comes out of the tank at the back of the boat but that is just an added complication. This way is simpler and I can just remove the tank easily (8 screws) when not needed. For around here where I mainly fish, my main tank is more than enough, I think it is about 150L and I think I go through less than half a tank for a days fishing here. Think of it as a big Jerry can! 😀

Thank you for that, unfortunately I don't do enough of TIG welding to become really good at it, as 99% of my welding is with MIG, about the only time I get to use the TIG is when a boat is involved.🙂

I will be going to Agnes Waters Qld. with the missus for the 1770 AusFish meet and greet trip in about a month and hoping to get out a few times to the Barrier reef (about 65Km out to sea), whilst I have a reasonable sized inbuilt fuel tank I would hate to get there and find that I need more fuel. So decided that rather have portable fuel cans lying around I would build myself an extra 60L fuel tank.

Got a sheet of 3mm Ally 5083/H116 and cut it down to size, had to take it to a sheet metal worker who put the bends in, however found that this ally temper needs a much wider radius in it and it had developed many thin cracks in the 90 degree bends.

I set the TIG to 150A and just quickly blasted the bend corners inside and out, that caused the cracks to melt into each other and fuse solid. Put in a fuel filler cap and also a 3/8" NPT threaded Boss with a 90 degree elbow to a 1/2" fuel line plus with a tap, added 4 angles to the tank to screw it in place in front of the passenger seat. This tank will double as a foot rest for the missus. Thinking of gluing a bit of carpet to the top so the missus can put her feet on it in the summer.

Just need to have some sort of clip added to the seat to stop the tap from rubbing and becoming loose. Tested the tank up to 8PSI as it is a small tank and it is about twice the pressure that most manufacturers do, so no leaks.

So when I get to the reef, I will just open the fuel hatch near the base of the tank and just let the spare tank drain into the main tank next to it, which you can see the cover in the last pic.

I will be taking the boat to the mechanics on Wednesday to see if the problem I had with the motor going in to limp mode recently can be simply and cheaply fixed, otherwise this will have been a futile attempt.
 

I haven't fished that area before apart from one time when I went up with out a boat and just fished the inlet side of the rocks, I was hoping to go to the Lady Musgrave area ( bottom end of the group) but that will depend on the weather and sea conditions which last time  I checked was not all that favourable after the first couple of days. So might have stick to the inlet or close to shore, but you know how weather predictions can be so will decide on the morning and fish accordingly.

You could always sell it off and put the money towards another one with more drag which would suit you more, but having said that, your sentimental attachment to this reel would prevent you from doing that.
The only other thing would be to sand down the washers and try the carbonite ones but I think that it might be a loosing battle for all that work, you may gain some added drag but not sure if and how much. Give Pure fishing a call and ask to speak to their technical department or their parts department and explain what you are trying to do and see what they say.
I think their number is 02 43517740. Hope this helps.
Regards
Ed.

HT-100 drag washers are among the best and a change to carbonite washers most likely won't be worth the bother and probably will not give too much or any increase in drag. Changing to a new reel with decent drag to start off with is probably the  easiest way to get extra drag, I know what you mean about keeping and using a reel for sentimental value. I think most of us have that issue and keep and old reel or two for that reason, but it is a bit harder for you as that one is a small casting reel, if it was just for reef fishing and a little bit of casting then there are heaps out there.  Have a look at the Penn Fathom  FTH15LD or FTH15LD2 they do 9Kg and the FTH25LD2 has 15Kg  drag and all are lever drag and ally body and under the $270 mark.
A few years ago I picked up an Okuma Solterra SLR-10CS for not much money, mine was the lever drag, open top version and had the magnetic casting control on it, and did about 22lb drag, it had a graphite body, the new ones (SLX) don't have the magnetic cast control on them though, but for boat fishing I prefer the compact Fathom 2 speeds.
Come on, you know you want a new reel!😀😀

Nah missed those, sorry must have been asleep, no, wait that was you! 🤣

I haven't fished that area before apart from one time when I went up with out a boat and just fished the inlet side of the rocks, I was hoping to go to the Lady Musgrave area ( bottom end of the group) but that will depend on the weather and sea conditions which last time  I checked was not all that favourable after the first couple of days. So might have stick to the inlet or close to shore, but you know how weather predictions can be so will decide on the morning and fish accordingly.

I have a similar situation, I bought a Daiwa PMF 55 about 40 years ago and it was the first reel I ever bought and "state of the art" at that time, and cost more than a weeks wages,  so I still have it for "sentimental reasons" and occasionally use it nowadays just for giggles. There is slop in the handles (single Dawg and no anti reverse bearings in those days) and it only has about 5.5kg of drag after modification. I changed the frame to a 57 size and also the Teflon washers to carbon based ones. Caught Trevally up to 20-25lb and lots of other fish. The only way I might be able to get more drag out of it would be mill out the main gear a bit and fit in larger washers. However at the end of the day it isn't worth it, as the cost and effort doing so out ways the tiny benefit gained (about 0.5 to 0.7kg extra from original) , there are much better reels out there at a quarter of the cost of what I paid, and designed with 3 times the drag pressure.

Here is some info regarding the Drag washers from the web. You could try the Dura drag washers but again I don't think that you will gain any significant drag increase. Lapping or sanding the metal drag washers generally only improves the smoothness of the drag only in other words when the drag is up tight and the line is still being pulled off, it will prevent the drag from shuddering or jerking. If you have any grease on your HT-100 washers it might help if you remove it, but that's about it, your reel is only designed to put out so much drag and that's it. If you had Felt washers you could get better results by switching to carbon washers, but different brand of carbon will not do anything in my opinion.

I have a similar situation, I bought a Daiwa PMF 55 about 40 years ago and it was the first reel I ever bought and "state of the art" at that time, and cost more than a weeks wages,  so I still have it for "sentimental reasons" and occasionally use it nowadays just for giggles. There is slop in the handles (single Dawg and no anti reverse bearings in those days) and it only has about 5.5kg of drag after modification. I changed the frame to a 57 size and also the Teflon washers to carbon based ones. Caught Trevally up to 20-25lb and lots of other fish. The only way I might be able to get more drag out of it would be mill out the main gear a bit and fit in larger washers. However at the end of the day it isn't worth it, as the cost and effort doing so out ways the tiny benefit gained (about 0.5 to 0.7kg extra from original) , there are much better reels out there at a quarter of the cost of what I paid, and designed with 3 times the drag pressure.

I have a similar situation, I bought a Daiwa PMF 55 about 40 years ago and it was the first reel I ever bought and "state of the art" at that time, and cost more than a weeks wages,  so I still have it for "sentimental reasons" and occasionally use it nowadays just for giggles. There is slop in the handles (single Dawg and no anti reverse bearings in those days) and it only has about 5.5kg of drag after modification. I changed the frame to a 57 size and also the Teflon washers to carbon based ones. Caught Trevally up to 20-25lb and lots of other fish. The only way I might be able to get more drag out of it would be mill out the main gear a bit and fit in larger washers. However at the end of the day it isn't worth it, as the cost and effort doing so out ways the tiny benefit gained (about 0.5 to 0.7kg extra from original) , there are much better reels out there at a quarter of the cost of what I paid, and designed with 3 times the drag pressure.

Here is some info regarding the Drag washers from the web. You could try the Dura drag washers but again I don't think that you will gain any significant drag increase. Lapping or sanding the metal drag washers generally only improves the smoothness of the drag only in other words when the drag is up tight and the line is still being pulled off, it will prevent the drag from shuddering or jerking. If you have any grease on your HT-100 washers it might help if you remove it, but that's about it, your reel is only designed to put out so much drag and that's it. If you had Felt washers you could get better results by switching to carbon washers, but different brand of carbon will not do anything in my opinion.