MattInOz

Yep... that's exactly where I was... I could see a "total loss" insurance claim in my immediate future.

I did briefly consider pulling a bung once I got moving again but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. Thankfully the pump eventually kicked in. I've got a new one sitting on the dining table ready to go in today.

Yeah great idea... so it's always right there. Funny, a spare bung was one of the parts I never thought I'd need in an emergency and rather it turned out to be the first one I needed. I won't be leaving land without a few on board from now on. That patch of reef sounds worthwhile, will have a look for it.

Yeah, it was interesting. Was using a variety of lures and soft plastics... decided to try a bait free day. That pylon's right where I was when the boat decided to try to sink... maybe I should give it another go with both bungs in.

As an update... I pulled the wiring apart but everything was solid, and the pump appeared to be working. Filled the boat up with water, the float switch did it's thing, and the pump did nothing. Turned on the manual system and it still did nothing. Had to turn it off and on a few times and suddenly it started working. Going out to buy a new pump tomorrow. I can get a 750GPH "Seaflo" one to replace my 500GPH "Bowline" one from Anaconda for the same price as my old 500 from BCF, and it takes the same size drain hose. Seems like a no brainer.

So... yesterday I put the boat in at Port of Brisbane (my first time launching solo) and decided to see what I could find between the port and the gateway bridge. I learned a lot... 1: There are no fish in the Brisbane River. I don't care what anyone else says to the contrary, it's just a big scam to sell fishing rods. Not a nibble did I get. 2: Bung plugs can vibrate out, and when they do they disappear into the river, and let the river into your boat at a scary speed. A REALLY scary speed. 3: I can reach the bung plugs by leaning over the transom without getting out of the boat. 4: My bilge pump doesn't work. So I'd been putting around the river for about two hours putting lines in here and there and had worked my way up to the bridge. I decided to run the sonar around the southern pylon as there already was a boat anchored at the northern one and was doing so when the engine decided to quit on me. It didn't immediately restart so I threw the anchor out so I could figure out what was going on when I noticed the two fenders stowed below the splashwell were floating in water an inch or two above the floor. Immediate panic mode struck and I went aft to check if I'd forgotten to put the bungs in. The starboard one was there and screwed in (so I hadn't forgotten them) but the port one was completely missing. Thankfully I had a spare on board so I quickly located that and solved the immediate problem, but of course the boat was still half full of water and sitting low and the pump wasn't pumping. I checked the "automatic" switch was on... yes it was, but no LED so I assumed a blown fuse. I turned the "manual" switch on (I set the pump up with 2 circuits so I had manual overrides and two fuses). Turning that on turned on the LED for the automatic mode (meaning the auto fuse was blown and the float switch was working) but still no pump. So at that point all I could do is get the motor running again and very carefully navigate my way back to the ramp and get the boat put of the water, which I did while panicing whenever I hit chop as the transom was quite low and it kept threatening to swamp the boat. The really weird bit though... when I got it onto the trailer and pulled the plugs I expected a gout of water but I got nothing... it was completely empty. The only thing I can think of is maybe the pump started working while I was motoring back (I hadn't turned it off) and it pumped the boat out without my noticing. I suspect the pump has a loose or faulty negative connection... it's wired to a negative busbar in the dual battery panel, but I think now I'll move that to a direct connection on a negative battery terminal and remove a potential point of failure (though really if that fails the entire boat's dead anyway). Either that or the pump itself is faulty and needs replacing, which would be a good excuse to upgrade to a bigger, new pump. I might do both just for peace of mind - I have no idea how old the pump is, might be 20 years or more - as well as buying a couple more spare bungs. So all up... a very educational day.

Thanks for the input guys... think I'll save my money and just keep tieing up to the rails.

Hey again So my boat (4.3m aluminium runabout) has no cleats other than a single bollard at the anchor well. I don't spend masses of time tied up to piers... generally just when I launch/retrieve and at those times I've been tieing off to the fore and aft handrails, but it's quite possible that at some point I'll want to pull up somewhere and tie up for lunch or something. To that end I've been wondering if using the rails (they're welded on, not bolted) is enough or if I need to put some cleats on? And if I do, can I simply drill through the gunwhales (1.6mm aluminium) and bolt them on with some big s/s fender washers behind them, or do I need to mount them to something more substantial?

Yeah I already cause enough tangles with regular swivels.

That's the plan.

Now you're just making stuff up to confuse the noob. OK, I'll bite, what's a dropper loop? *edit* Never mind, I found it. In doing so I also found the answer to WHY... so you can get your bait/lure just off the bottom rather than right on it. Thanks.

Heya all. Possible noob question here. While having a peek in a mate's gear I came across three way swivels. I've had a look at various youtube vids and seen some rigs using them and I can see how it would prevent tangles as compared to having two leaders off a regular swivel... but why bother? What's the difference between hanging a sinker off an individual leader and having it on the line above the swivel? Isn't it going to end up on the bottom either way? Matt

Yeah I'm pretty close to calling it a done deal now. There's a few more things I want to do but they're really minor things... wiring the guage/compass lights to the nav lights instead of the ignition, swapping out the speedo for a GPS one (ordered from aliexpress... mostly so I know what speed I'm trolling at, also so I can remove the pitot tube from the transom and fill the screw holes), and fitting an hour meter so I know when it needs a service... but effectivley it's finished now. I'm going out to Moreton Bay wednesday week with two other largish blokes, that'll be the last "sea trial"... if all goes well I'll call it done.

I'm a bit suss about fuel additives... most of them are just snake oil - other than Sta-Bil. Will look into it though. Yeah... I've been activley avoiding that... three carbs that all have to be synchronised again after I pull them apart. It's not hard, it's just a pain. I should bite the bullet and do it though. I've replaced all the fuel and vent lines... cost me a small fortune coz of the under floor tank... just the 1 meter of 38mm fuel filler line was nearly $90... but the old one had more in common with a stick than a flexible fuel line, so had to be done.

Yeah that's a really good idea... will look into that. Not a lot of weight I can move forward... the batteries etc are in the stern and everything else is already stashed in the bow. The tank's under the floor so it can't be moved. To add to the problem I've put a pair of seats in the stern so I can take out the family or a 3rd person fishing so I really need that stern out of the water faster. Put the 'foil on today so we'll see how it goes. Put in a skeg guard too just in case... plus I like polished stainless steel. The engine (Merc 40hp 2 stroke 3 cyl) has a redline of 5500 and it gets there at WOT. Prop's the factory 10 5/8 x 12. I think it's more weight issue than a prop one... it's really happy to get it's nose up in the air if anyone's in the blunt end of the boat. Scared the life out of the missus first time it happened.

I ended up getting hold of one from Gumtree... a Shimano Charter Special 2000LD, with level wind and lever drag... and an unbranded but rather nice overhead rod, abt 5'6" long, with a roller tip... cost me $50 and he threw in 3 more lightweight two part spinning rods (no reels) for free. Gonna take the reel in and get it serviced then put some new mono on it and see what I can catch.

Hey guys. As I mentioned in another post I got an introduction to trolling the other day. Pulled in a few taylor and had a great fight with something large that eventually got away before we could see it. All this was on an old (like 40+ years old I suspect) 7' Wilson rod I inherited from my step father with some fairly light braided line on a Shimano Hyperloop 4000FB reel, pulling a Halco "Laser Pro 120" lure that the boat's previous owner threw in with the boat. I've never tried trolling before and I had an absolute blast, but it's not really a trolling set up... more of a light casting rod, so I'm looking at getting a rod intended as a boat/trolling rod. The boat's too small (and the captain too inexperienced) to be crossing bars so I'll be fishing in Moreton Bay, Pumicestone Passage, and the Gold Coast seaway, so in waters from about 5-20m deep most of the time, and won't be pulling in Mako sharks or marlins so I'm not looking for anything too heavy. I've done a bit of looking around at the usual places and am fairly settled on one of the Penn GT 320 combos from Anaconda. It's a 6' single piece, graphite cored rod which the manufacturer describes as a "medium" boat rod suitable for 8-12kg and the reel holds 290 yards of 20lb mono, so I can put about 200 meters of 12kg mono on it, or more if I go braided. What do you think guys... is it a happy medium, or overkill for what I'll be doing? Would you suggest something else? I do want an overhead rod, just to keep the reel out of the way when in the rod holder without having the rod "up side down" so it's flexing the wrong way. Oh and here's a gratuitous picture of one of our visitors the other day... he got to swim away and get bigger.

Hey again guys... here's an update to the update. Took the boat and a mate (and his 40kg rottweiler) up to Pumicestone Passage for the day. Put in at Bellara Boat Ramp and logged in with VMR Bribie Island. Spent about 5-6 hours buzzing around the passage and a couple of creek mouths, getting some lines wet and so forth. The boat basically didn't leak... got about 10 seconds of dribble when I pulled the bungs out and that was it. The trailer performed flawlessly, as you'd expect from a new trailer... and I'm learning how to use the fish finder. The engine does have one minor issue... when you're trolling and running at low speed for an extended period it'll be fine for about ten minutes then start to struggle as if it's starving. If you give it a rev (either in gear or in nuetral with the fast idle) it'll come good, if not it'll die and require a few squeezes of the priming bulb before it'll restart. The water seperating filter bowl will still be full of fuel so I'm suspecting a minor air leak somewhere between the filter and the fuel pump, or the pump itself may need some attention. Other than that the engine pulled strongly and behaved itself... it's even stopped the enormous cloud of smoke it used to do when you first started it. Other than that I'm going to put a hydrofoil on it to get the stern up quicker as the boat's gotten quite stern heavy with the addition of the second battery and two extra seats in the aft... will probably go with one of the aluminium "OzPropellors" ones from up in Maroochydore to support local businesses (and because I like the idea of an aluminium one more than a plastic one). We did pull in a few fish and I got an introduction to trolling, but more of that in another post.

Quick update... took the boat to a local welder (Scott, top bloke, works out of his back yard. Hit me up if you want his number) to get the broken welds on one of the floor ribs rewelded and he spotted my leak... the factory weld in the chine where the bottom bit of the hull joins the side bit (I'm sure they have real names) had what originally looked like an 8" crack along it. Apparently it opened up more when he got the tig onto it... by the time he was done it was closer to a 14" long repair. Glad that got fixed... will put it back in the river on sunday to see if we stay dry. In related news I took the trailer out to R & M boat trailer repairs in Hemmant today... they made me a pair of bolt on tie down points - $40 for the pair (as versus the ones I saw on ebay for $75 each that I would have had to modify to fit!). Very happy I am. Replaced the breather and filler fuel lines for the under floor tank too and in theory it should now be seaworthy... just needs the floor put back in after I prove it on sunday. Wish me luck.

Just went through this replacing the floor of my 4.3m runabout. Spoke to a guy from "Plywood and Panel" here in Brisbane (guess what they specialise in?) and asked about marine ply. Apparently they used to supply ply to Quintrex and he recommended regular old structural ply with"marine bonding" (means the glue's not water based) and 2-3 coats of water based acrylic paint on all surfaces to seal it (apparently oil based paint messes with the glue). Important thing to remember is to drill/cut all the holes (including screw holes) notches etc before painting, as the edges are the most important part to seal up. I then covered it with marine carpet from Bunnings, glued down with artificial turf glue (which is designed for outdoor use and amusingly is bright green) and stapled on the rear with stainless steel staples. You can get the staples from Whitworths in Brisbane (and probably many other chandlers), and Kennards have an electric upholstery staple gun that fires them (they don't fit in regular old manual staple guns). The other thing to note is that you'll need to screw it down to the boat, and that stainless steel screws in aluminium will cause galvanic corrosion. The solution is to drill the holes in the ply large enough for the screw to pass through, drill the holes in the aluminium to suit the self tapping screws, and coat the screw threads with tefgel or duralac before you screw them in. (Duralac's toxic, use rubber gloves... or just use tefgel).

Having just bought a new one to replace the old one made of swiss cheese and rust, I fully support this... nice job. Wish my trailer's previous owner had done the same thing a year or so ago.

Sounds like just what I need... tanks.

Not much... if it's more than about 10° up from vertical it clears speed bumps etc. Uhh? Don't know. It's a 4.3m aluminium runabout with a 40hp hanging off it and a splashwell built into it. It doesn't fall off or flex when I use it. How does one test the strength of a transom... other than destructively? Yeah that's why I wanted to avoid the built in tilt lock, coz it's up at maximum tilt. From what you say I should be ok with one of those plastic dohickeys that Another Wazza recommends. Just want to keep the stress off the hydralics really.

Yeah think mine's 1500kg... so I can just loop those hooks over the strap? That makes life easier.

Mate... that's exactly what I need, brilliant! One issue solved with ease. Do I need to order a specific length or just cut it to suit?