Browns Yesterday 08/07

[dandas]

Hi guys.

The quick version - Went to Browns and pulled in a 6.5KG baby Albacore. That was it.

The rest of the story.

We saw a break in the weather yesterday so Raider Mike191 and myself headed out to Browns in my boat and some of his friends in another boat.

I picked Mike up at 6am and headed straight for the boat ramp where we met the other guys. The Cruise Craft was in the water quickly and had its first Port Hacking dip. It was also the first time I had the thing in the water in about 3 months so I made sure it had a major service the week before since I had a few trips out wide planned.

We started puttering out slowly waiting for the second boat to launch and by the time we got to the 8 knot zone we could see them coming in fast so I waited till we got out into the open and gave it some gas. As soon as I did.

Pop.

What the hell. The engine - Dead.

No engine power, no trim, no tacos nothing. Everything else worked fine though. We figured it was a a fuse so started pulling everything apart while the guys from the other boat jumped over to give us a hand.

Naturally swear words were flying around everywhere and the first thing I did was call the guy that just serviced the boat. It was 6:30am but I couldn't care less if he was asleep. I was ready to kill him. He confirmed that it had to be a fuse and tried to guide us as to where we might find it. No luck..... After about 45 minutes we got towed back in and the second boat set off for Browns without us.

Both Mike and I were on the phone to different mechanics trying to get this thing fixed when all of a sudden Mike found a different fuse which turned out to be the one. There was even a spare. Beautiful !! So we changed it over and everything started and worked fine. Thank Goodness !!!

So again we putted out and got past the 8 knot zone, got out into the open, gave it some gas....

POP.

(swearing, cursing, shouting, jumping, stamping etc)

Sure enough the same fuse blew. Luckily we had one more spare but since I am smarter than both Bart and the hamster I knew not to do the same thing again. Every time I gave it gas it dies so no more giving it gas. We basically were able to just nurse it back to the ramp.

By this stage Mike191 is ready to kill me, the boat, and anyone else who interfered with a day on the water so decided we should just head in and go and get his boat.

We did that and finally got on the water. We were 3 hours late and the day was glorious. So glorious that Mike hit the throttle and we did 26 knots non to stop to Browns. We made it there in about an hour. With all the rushing I managed to leave my shoes in my boat so I just about had blue feet all day.

We trolled around for a while for nothing and the guys on the other boat also had nothing so after an hour or so we pulled up and started the cube trail. The water was between 17 and 18.5 degrees which wasn't as warm as we wanted but we had to make the most of the day.

None of us managed any YFT but our boat pulled in a small Alby. That was it for the day. The second boat pulled the pin at about 4pm. We stayed longer and when we left the sky behind us was pitch black and there was a tiny bit of orange lighting the sky in front of us so we hit it hard to beat the darkness.

Darkness won.

We still managed to get home in an hour IN THE DARK. We were both a bit worried about hitting a whale since we saw so many on the way out but managed to get all the way home unscathed.

What a day !!

Dan

BTW I tried to add a photo but I can't get it to work again....

[shefford]

What a stuff up, glad you still got out for a fish after all of that.

Had one of those days about a month ago, left fish finder/gps @ home 1.5 hrs away, (3 hrs return trip) so we just came home and had maccas for breakfast

[mr magoo]

sorry to here about your engine /fuse dramas,boats can do your head in

if you like send us a pm and ill give you my email address and il post the pics for you

cheers arman

[dandas]

so what was the verdict with the boat?

Well it is up at the mechanic now. All arrows point to a short with some wires behind the throttle. They installed a new steering cable when they serviced it recently so my guess is they bumped some wires feeding it through. They will be getting it done tomorrow (hopefully).

sorry to here about your engine /fuse dramas,boats can do your head in

if you like send us a pm and ill give you my email address and il post the pics for you

Thanks Arman.

As Mike pointed out at 6.5KG the fish was just an embryo. Probably a bit embarrassing to put it up anyway