zmk1962

Dropping an inch in pitch has about a 6% effect on rpm/speed (excluding prop slip effect). Smaller pitch can give you more bite at lower rpm, giving better hole shot (but a drop in top end speed) .... dropping pitch will also increase the RPM at which you cruise, which may move you into the motor's sweet spot (torque spot) to help maintain your cruise RPM. But dropping pitch may also underprop you r motor and make the prop prone to cavitation. Especially if your motor has the torque to rapidly spin it up. (It will literally boil the water around it). Sometimes what is done is to drop the pitch and increase the diameter of the prop. What prop are yuo running now? I have a 150 like you (except mine is the pro xs). I run it on a very heavy FG 2T+ rig... and I don't drop RPM cruising. But even the standard 150, has a very flat torque curve - so you shouldn't be dropping rpm at cruise. There is something else going on. Where is your anti ventilation plate at cruising speed? It should be just below the water line around the motor.... (ie. don't worry so much about its position relative to the keel). The water wicks up from the back of the hull towards the motor. Depending on the hull design it can raise 1-2in. Your anti ventilation plate should be skimming just under the surface of that water around the motor. Initially fitting the motor we use the keel as a reference for the height, but after that it's a sea trial that gets it sorted as the sea trial takes into account how your hull sits in the water (how its loaded and how it rides) as well as how the water leaves the hull at the back. I've posted this previously - helps demonstrate: Cheers Zoran

Lots of great advice given above already. The V17 is a solid hull with a good reputation - you now need to build your experience and confidence... take your time there's no need to rush it. There's great fishing grounds out there, but take an approach of safety first, and most importantly experiment slowly so that you learn how your boat handles certain conditions and how it responds to your controls under those conditions. A good hull can help overcome small errors and will help you build your experience - but the most important factor in boating is skipper experience. There was a saying I posted previously "We all start out with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience - the objective is to fill our bag with experience before we run out of luck ! ". Personally on your first few trips, I would look for conditions with less than 1m swell as max. The waters coming out of broken bay can quickly pick up and be so choppy they present a danger to small craft. This happens under conditions such as a falling tide facing an easterly wind. As a result Maritime has classified the area from Juno/Flint and Steel to the heads as limited open waters if swell is under 0.5m and OPEN waters if swell is over 0.5m. That gives you an idea of what can happen within the estuary .... so at the heads, and 8km beyond the conditions can be even worse. I have a 6m+ ocean going hard top haines and I have had waves break over my bow and onto the windscreen coming back into broken bay ... all the way to patonga. Have a quick read of this summary - I have posted the link to the full fishraider article below as well. ""The rule of thumb for wind and swell is you get 1m of swell for every 10kts of wind, where the wind has been been blowing across the ocean for quite some distance. So a 20kt sou'easter will bring up a 2m SE swell. On top of the swell you get the "sea" which is the effect of the local wind. So a 1m swell with a 0.5m sea means 1.5m. This is called the combined sea state. Whenever you read a weather report containing wave heights it is important to remember these are an average, be prepared to meet waves up to twice that height !!!!!!!! This is why you must know your vessel limits because you may be able to handle 1m seas peaking at 2m but can you survive 2m seas peaking at 4m. How often does this happen? All the time !!!! This is what led to the total loss of a 6.0m long vessel off Long Reef last year in seas around 1.5m when they were suddenly confronted with a set of four 4m waves that went straight over the nose green and filled it completely. The vessel rolled over in less than 20 secs, and this was a 2C commercially built vessel." ...and this is the article with the Maritime open waters classification for Broken Bay .. Cheers Zoran

Absolutely top shelf stuff @TK01 ! Enjoying the fruits of your labour for sure. So good to see. Hmmm. The Merc 150 is a torque beast. If you can hit WOT then I would not say you are over propped. The porpoising can occur if the leg is too deep in the water on a light hull. Can you raise the motor a notch? You also mention "too much trim is required" ... what are you experiencing to say it's too much trim? Cheers Zoran PS - I have a very heavy haines and I often trim mine down (tuck the motor in) to cut thru the waves and to avoid porpoising - it uses a fraction more fuel but the ride quality improves 1000%. On the last trip, coming back through Sydney harbour @Pickles called it a hydrafoil - well thats the effect trimming in has on my hull.

Great report. Some top fishing there. cheers Zoran

Great report and catch JamoDamo! You saw more action on your bank than we did on the shelf 🤣. Good on you for giving it a go. KC has given you good advice re job hunting. You may also want to go to a few tackle shops and just have a chat to a store manager about what they look for in an applicant - you’ll be surprised what could come out of that. Best of luck with it. cheers Zoran

Actually maybe he was on your side of the boat too ! 🤣 cheers Z

It's a 25A plug. Probably a commercial grade appliance. You'd need a circuit board upgrade and dedicated circuit to feed the appliance to carry the load. https://www.plugsocketmuseum.nl/Australian3.html Cheers Zoran

Thanks Sam. But I think you meant to say - Perfect conditions for offshore boating! Great company for sure never makes for a bad day on the water. We never gave up. There was a school of small Tuna that showed up - hence why we dropped the bait and jig in .. but even they were on holidays enjoying the calm warm water. Thanks BN. Waves - I dare say they did not qualify for that. Maybe ripples would be more apt 🤣. Flatties rule as do Fishraider mates. I don't think we stopped chatting for a minute - always something interesting to discuss. Yeah - Pickles did mention we could waterski - and my comment was - I'm ok with that, but the guy on the skis has to hold a large hook as well - just in case we get a hit - wouldn't want to miss a strike 😁 Hey Adrian ... Yes it was the mako. If you watch the video on a larger screen in high definition (HD) youtube setting you can see the mako break the water. It must have had the sinker lodged in its mouth because we only lost the sinker - the deep drop rig/hooks came back all ok. Let's hope next time work will align with conditions and we can get you out there and on to some deep edible ooglies. 🤙 Thanks mate. Wasn't sure what to write, as there were no real fish to report on - but thought it worthy just to document the trip and mateship ... and the uncanny conditions. Who'd otherwise believe the "Pacific Pond" story? Thanks Yowie. We certainly did that! Total trip 10h24m. Distance on water 153km. Max speed 66.5km/h. Fuel 110L. You can't help but smile when the motor is wound out and the boat just kisses the sea - ahhhhh... Offshore with buddies... Fishing ... Boating LOVE IT ! I think we were still grinning at the ramp ! Thanks Rebel always good to get out. Cheers Zoran

Thanks for reminding us of this Wazza. I actually remember those events and reading the news paper articles of the day... Concentrated farming of any type is never a good idea ecologically - nature had not evolved the animals to live in such confined concentrated situations - the rapid spread of a disease becomes inevitable and a catastrophe. Lets hope we have learnt - and your article certainly helps to keep this past experience in mind. Cheers Zoran

Yup the fog has been think up the Hawkesbury the last few times. Good job on your own. Thanks for the report. Cheers Zoran

Hey Raiders With the Thursday forecast being for very calm conditions, it was too good an opportunity to pass up for a trip out to the shelf (Browns Mountain) for some deep dropping activity. So I reached out to a few Fishraiders and got a positive from Dieter @61 crusher and Bob @Pickles. With crew set and conditions holding through the week, the excitement was building especially after the success of the previous trip to Browns with Sam @GoingFishing Well Thursday finally came around. We hit Ermington ramp at 630am dead on time. Our trailer was the 3rd in the carpark and Mr Asia Atlas was just finishing his morning swim. After an easy launch we raced out to the heads. There was still some debris in Paramatta river, but it was simple to spot and avoid in the morning light. The trip out was one of the quickest I've had, pretty much sitting on or above 55kmh, but I wasn't quite sure if we'd missed a turn for Browns coz the place we ended up at really looked like a pond - the "Pacific Pond". There were another 10 boats floating around so I concluded we were there. I said it was calm - didn't I. We stopped about 1.5km out, set up the electrics, had a quick lesson on how to operate them, marked our drift and direction.... and then..... we were there ... dropping on the mark that produced the big blue eye last trip. Caught bottom on both drops, 2 sinkers, 1 rig, 400m of braid, flashing light gizmo gone ... hahaha that's fishing. Re-spooled fresh line onto the reel (I had remembered to bring some this trip), re-rigged, zoomed back to the mark and we were dropping baits back down. At 200m depth both rods shake, lines go slack, another 2 sinkers gone. WTF. Sharks again !!! But we are Fishraiders and we persevere - someone once even said we were legends 🤣. Anyway, re-rig, re sinker, re bait and down they go. So by 1pm the tally was up to 8 sinkers for 1 hooked mako and one gaffed and released green eye 7 gill shark. @Pickles being the star fisherman. https://www.sharksider.com/sharpnose-sevengill-shark/ Here's a short video of the "action" of the day ! Well with no cod or gems to be seen and no other boat showing any action we decided to cut our losses and raced to sandy grounds off Collaroy for a total of 4 keeper flathead. At least we had a feed. Fishraiders rule 🤙 Despite the scarce fish, I had an absolutely fantastic day, I think we solved most of the world's problems and listened to some great blues - Bob and Dieter - you are great company and awesome human beings. I look forward to the next sesh ! Cheers Zoran PS - For those wanting stats at Browns: Current is running S - N at 1.4kmh. Water temp 20.4C. We flew through 12mile at 64kmh and there was not a boat to be seen going out and coming back!

Top post and catch Bob. BTW do you spend much time on terra firma? 🤣 See you in a few hours. cheers Zoran

Just trying to see if there’s one closer or more accessible. I’ve used the one on Windsor rd previously. Cheers Z

Hey Frank. Which weigh bridge do you use? cheers Zoran

Nice catch from the correct side of the boat. Hope the knees better. cheers Zoran

As a guitarist ..... a special commemoration: https://www.facebook.com/abcinbrisbane/videos/the-last-post-played-on-electric-guitar/2940050962898499/

Thank Sam @GoingFishinghe was the source !

We used several different types on the day. Berkley Powerbait 10cm Minnow Chartreuse shad Berkley Powerbait 12.5cm Bubble Shiner Pearl White (thats the grub looking one you see in the photo) Berkley Powerbait 12.5cm Bubble Shiner Pearl Ayu The pink and lumo squid looking things in the first two photos are jigs that I make up my self. Check this post: Cheers Zoran

Put it this way. Would a 5hp petrol outboard work? Yes. A 55lb thrust electric is around 4hp from memory. cheers Z

Yes it would work for sure.

Frank your a legend. That’s not work - that’s true craftsmanship! All the best with the project and especially your health. Cheers Zoran

Well done Pickles - the flatties are definitely firing! cheers Zoran

Parsley Bay. George St Brooklyn. cheers Z

Hi Dave... what was the question??

Absolutely fabulous being out fishing with family and to catch such quality fish to boot ! Will the jew end up on the wall of fame? .... is there any room left ! Cheers Z