GregOug

Just plotted those coordinates. Unfortunately they are all for one approximately three hundred metre stretch of a very unexciting, fish barren river bank, including one which is actually an anchorage. So for others who may follow in my stead, don’t waste the time needed to convert the coordinates.

Yeah, I think it’s more user error than winch error. I’ll get used to it.

Mate, I’ll take whatever I can get. Can we just give out the trophies now?

Yeah, but I’ve noticed that the rope stops going out where you can see it from the helm but it sometimes still unwinds in the anchor well. Perhaps I have a free fall/non free fall version? It probably depends on the way I hold my tongue.

Mate, all mine don’t show fish either. I think fish are a mythical government led conspiracy, probably related in some way to vaccines.

Believe it or not but I think I can answer that question! Just look at the screenshots of my new sounder I just posted and the voltage is displayed as 12.5v. That was with the engine off, but with the isolator switch set to both batteries, which run everything.

Thanks for that Steve. I wonder what they mean by an ‘extended period of time’?

Yeah. There are no screw holes and Hayden said they would need to replace the panelling.

Hi all. A question for you. Someone said to me recently that you shouldn’t leave your gps/sounder on when the boat is out of the water because it burns out the transducer. Is this correct? Sounds pretty bloody stupid to me if it is. I mean, even today I went out to my boat a few hours after we put it back on the trailer and I noticed I’d left the gps/sounder on. And how do you know if this has happened? Does it stop producing a bottom reading or stop displaying altogether? What happens?

They probably did. I know my boat was down there for quite a while.

No. I did have them and I intend to look through my old photos when I get time so that I can compare and see which I like best. I didn’t even pick up on it until I got home. I’m fairly sure they would still fit so not sure why they aren’t on. Perhaps they just forgot when reinstalling the gauges?

And before anyone starts on about my finger being in one of the photos, I did that deliberately in case we ever have a competition about who’s got the biggest anchor and the comp marker is a finger!

Okay. Posting some pics of my new anchor winch and 9” Garmin for my ss64. I thought I had posted my impressions of both here, but I mistakenly posted them to the BEST 9” GARMIN thread instead. If you are interested see there. I apologise for the quality of the photos but in my defence: My boat is currently sitting out under the scorching hot Queensland sun, hence there is a lot of reflection. I couldn’t even see what I was taking a photo of in a few of them due the glare, and I’m a hopeless photographer!

Okay. Good to hear. I know we took a lot of water on the day it decided to turn nasty. I’m talking a 20-25 knot bluster on top of a very decent swell coming in from the bar. Not sure about wind against tide or any of that but it certainly was blowing any spray thrown straight into our faces so there was enough wind force to do that. We were all actually laughing our heads off at one stage as people tried to hide under sodden towels and the helmsman tried to see through salt encrusted eyes. I had to give it away and pass the helm over to Tom when I just couldn’t see any more! I think his extra few inches of height enabled him to miss some of the spray being thrown.

I’ll add some pics under the ss64 thread.

Okay. I finally got my boat back the day before we were due to head to Tin Can Bay for four nights. I love both the changes I had made. Firstly the anchor winch. It does the job very nicely. The only thing that I found was that you need to reverse the boat to keep some tension on the line otherwise it stops going out once it hits bottom, which it does quite quickly. The anchor is a rather substantial plough anchor with about thirty feet of decent sized chain and a lot of rope after that. The provided bowsprit and fastening plates are also made of heavy grade stainless steel. The bowsprit needs to be sturdy as the anchor secures into its recess with some force and rather quickly if you keep the button pressed too long. We had trouble finding fish so used the anchor many times each day, trying different spots. I began to worry that it might be depleting the batteries but upon checking them they were both at 100%, so that isn’t a problem. Overall, very happy so far with it. Next, the new 9” Garmin. Definitely a good decision for me at least. The larger screen enabled me to split screen and read both the navigation screen and the sounder screen a lot easier than on my 7” one. It reads the bottom well. At one stage we were doing close to 80kph and it was still mapping the bottom. The fish arches (when you do finally find some!) were very discernible and the image was well defined. It did seem to have a fair bit of light clutter on the screen most of the time, which I imagine I could get rid of with some setting changes? The one frustrating thing is that it seems I will need to buy a Garmin G3 Vision card to enable auto-routing, despite the fact that various web articles stated that auto-routing was also available with the standard built in G3. It certainly didn’t come up as an option when creating routes. Overall though, very happy with it.

I have a question. I ended up mooring my ss64 to the jetty for three nights instead of having to put it on and off the trailer each day. At the end of each day I turned the power off at the isolator switch to conserve the batteries. But when I turned it on the next morning the automatic bilge pump immediately came on and pumped a fair amount of water out. On one occasion it ran for at least thirty seconds to a minute. I’m just wondering where the water would have come from. I know a couple of times we pulled up to quickly and some water came over the back and one day the seas were that rough coming back across the passage from Fraser that we took a lot of heavy spray onboard, but I don’t remember if we had any water come aboard yesterday and it still pumped out this morning. Any ideas?

Mine seems to be a free fall anchor. It goes out quite quickly. The only problem is that when it reaches the bottom you need to reverse the boat to put pressure on the line so more line goes out.

And I note I’m currently coming third in the comp!

No. You’re twenty years younger. And you probably couldn’t join because I told them to ban you from the comp. Didn’t know you’d find a work-around.

Not really. We have tried just about everywhere. But finally, on our last try at spot number 647 this afternoon we found a spot with some actual live fish. Only one keeper, a grassie, but the bite was hectic, with many undersized cod, Moses perch, squire etc etc. We had a ball! My tan is ten shades darker and the boat looks like a abattoir, but overall a great trip.

Bloody hell Hamish! I’ve read shorter books. Including War and Peace. (Look it up) Lol. Great reports. Keep at it.

Nah mate. I was only joking. If you think it’s worth a certain amount I’m happy to pay it.

Hey! You didn’t reduce the price of the one I already agreed to buy!

I’ll take the live fibre 8-10kg. I won’t be back until Thursday though. Up at Tin Can Bay with the boat for a few days of, hopefully, catching some fish. Going to try the area between Inskip Point and the area where the barge lands on Fraser, and the bottom end of Fraser itself. Fingers crossed.