How do you know the limits of your boat

[reef_king]

hi guys,

it seems that people on this site are questioning my story......so i'll give a little more info.
On the second day of being at Lady Musgrave we were fishing in the lee of the island when 3 guys onboard a 68ft trawler "JEROBA" waved us over to there boat. They wanted smokes in exchange for prawns as they had run out. The invited us on there vessel and where happy to see other people as they had been out for 6 weeks.

They had been anchored in the lee of the island for a week and a half as it was to rough to trawl. They told us that the previous night they had tried to go out for a trawl as the wind had dropped to 30-40knts. They were in 200-300meters and 5mins after putting the nets in the port side 1.5inch steel cable snapped, this drew all the weight of the nets to the stardboard side spinning the boat beam onto the sea where an 8m wave crashed over the side pinning one of the deckies against the snap freaser breaking a couple of ribs, the boat listed hugely before righting and the starboard side cable snapped. The skipper said he was in the 3 story wheelhouse at the time and the wave was at eye-level, he thought they were going down at first but belives that the weight of the net swinging of the starboard side prevented the boat from rolling. These guys lost tens of thousands of dollars worth for that trip and couldn't belive that we had gotten out there that day, in that small of a boat, they thought we were mad......... i have nothing to gain by lying, and if in doubt contact Damion the skipper of the JEROBA

[sphven]

ill second tht one phoenix but i will ad tht no fish is worth dieing for

[DALEPRICE]

god luck to you reef king,
great advise for anybody with bugga all
boating experience to go out in a 40 knott
blow and see what happens............

[finding_time]

I agree with what a few people have said, most boats will out last the skippers ,and if you slow down and do the basics correctally you'll get home. I also think you'll find finding the limits of you boat a scary experance,for example early last year i had been going across the Pincussion Bar ALOT and had become a little bit complacent with it ( BIG MISTAKE) on this particuler day the tide had been running out for 3 hours and there was a 1.25 meter swell comming from both the ese and ne What i should have done is turned around put the boat back on the trailer and driven to Mooloolabah, but what i did was sit a wait for a shot.

Well the result was i mucked it up and in hind sight i was always going to fail because the set were to hard to pick. The waves just stood up and sucked and sucked with the run out tide till they broke over the boat. The first wave in fact broke onto the outboard they were tubbing that much ,the next hit the consol and the next the deck infront of the consol. The boat was full of water and i mean full to the gunnels but due to three or four things i made it through.

1.when i saw i was going to wear it i kept the boat straight into the waves i didn't try to run away.
2. The boat is a self drainer, actually a flat decker and has a 3" high transom and not quite 2 foot sides so the water flowed out very quickly and the scuppers took care of the rest.
3. the motor kept going which kept me straight ( little bit of good management and alot of luck)

Anyway if that didn't stop the little girl i would hate to be in a situation that does stop her.

Ian

Ps. for those that dont know the boat was a southwind UB520 longboat. And i've had her up at fraser when the winds been 30 knots from the south and pushing into a 2-3 knot southerly running current ( very rough) and as long as you take it easy it's fine.

[insideout]

panic is the ultimate killer when it comes to most things... i too have been out in big seas and dark nights seem to be the onset of this condition... tests the mettle of any skippa- boat owner , slow and steady in most conditions seem to win overall, and a background in surfing also applies well in a boat facing big seas ,if anything to read the surf and to predict the vessels movement....people seem to think there is something wrong with going 6 knotts in a heavy sea flying blind......

[fishingrod]

Ps. for those that dont know the boat was a southwind UB520 longboat. And i've had her up at fraser when the winds been 30 knots from the south and pushing into a 2-3 knot southerly running current ( very rough) and as long as you take it easy it's fine.

Ill second the ability of the Southwind UB's. We ran a UB670 as a inshore VMR boat and it coped reasonably well with knee deep water inside ...... as it did on this day:


Ill also back up Reef_Kings earlier comment re the ability of Cats in large seas. Try this thread:
http://www.ausfish.com.au/cgi-ausfis...40792711/13#13

Knowing how to "handle" a boat is worthless if you suffer mechanical failure in heavy weather. Then i beleive its called "seamanship" when you are trying to cope with what you have and have to improvise with sea anchors, buckets etc

[fishingrod]

Hi fishingrod.... what squadron you with?
I am a member of VMR Raby bay........... drew the short straw for duty on Monday's holiday.

Im actually in Sydney mate ..... We dont normally call ourselves VMR down here but its the same thing just a different smell.

All you blo*dy QLDers talk about VMR so i just follow suit to fit in

[fishn-ads]

Reef_King

I'd cop your yarn if you where in New Zealand big seas down in that Southern ocean (remember a certain yacht race a couple of years ago boys) got a Kiwi mate that reckons 3-4 metre is not an abnormal blow up in and hour down there. Look at the boats they build, there made to take waves.

Only ever heard of an 8 metre swell this far north being in the middle of a cyclone (80+ Knots in a 5m tinny?).

Just to much water thats too deep I think. Front on a 8 m wave would be 12 m high.

Guest where just blessed in QLD. Make that I know we're blessed in Qld.

Did a quick search found this
http://www.windworker.com.au/qldcyclones.htm

This time "MAROONS"

Ads

[reef_king]

[color=#339900]QUOTE FROM FISHN-ADS

Reef_King

I'd cop your yarn if you where in New Zealand big seas down in that Southern ocean (remember a certain yacht race a couple of years ago boys) got a Kiwi mate that reckons 3-4 metre is not an abnormal blow up in and hour down there. Look at the boats they build, there made to take waves.

Only ever heard of an 8 metre swell this far north being in the middle of a cyclone (80+ Knots in a 5m tinny?).

Just to much water thats too deep I think. Front on a 8 m wave would be 12 m high.

Guest where just blessed in QLD. Make that I know we're blessed in Qld.


Ads,

I could have died on that trip to 1770 and "YOU" (who i might ad wasn't there) say that there is no way the waves could have been that big.

Multiple time this year alone.there has been waves recorded over 8m out off Brisbane. From memory a wave was recorded at 15+m out of Point Lookout, and this didn't happen during a "cyclone" but a deep low pressure system of the coast generating 60knot winds.

As for 4m waves off the coast of NZ being a common occurrence, they are off this coast too, and i'm sure fellow Ausfish member FOOKCHUCKER will agree as ive taken him fishing in 4+m waves, and i wasn't one bit worried about these waves as it's possible to drift fish in conditions like this in the cat.

Im sure there are ausfish members who have been out in similar
weather and can back me up.

ty,

[Blackened]

G'day
From personal experiance in regards to reef_king (ty). This bloke is genuine and fair dinkum. I've had the pleasure of meeting him and going for a run in his cat, one of wich i'm greatly interested in. He doesn't need to or would lie for whatever reasons so just give him a break. I do also recall 12-15m waves off the gold coast and north stradbroke earlier this year. If you dont buy the story then so be it, that's your call. Just dont go branding people if you dont know them
Dave

[RAGINGBULL]

My view

I surfed and did beach launches with fishing paddle skiis for 15 years
These teach you the very basic fundementals of negotiating the surf zone
The Skipper has the ability to make a split decision which can save a boat or loose a boat mostly based on experience.
The selection of boat is also critical.

I had an anchor some how come out on the caloundra bar and took 2 waves one over the 3/4 side and one over the back wheww !!! before i realised what was going on.
I used the rope and boat as a pendulum.
When we finally found a knife in ammongst the floating eskies
We cut it loose in the middle of the bar there was only one option and that was to use the weight of the boat too punch our way out.
If i had tried to run back to the beach i would possibly never have had the power to outrun the waves.
We fished the day for a good result.
2 sheathed knives are now strapped close at hand.

Never try turn in front of a wave even if it looks bigger than ben Hur and scares the Cr*p out of you, I have seen people do it and suffer the consequences.
You are much safer hitting it head on and busting through.
There are a plenty of options to take in a situation but the correct one is difficult to pin in a seconds judgement.

one more thing always ensure the peron you take out is fully informed of where and how everything is operated

Good old haines 146

Cheers Mark

[finding_time]

Ty

Dont worry abut it mate its not worth getting upset about!

The area you are talking about for the benifit of those that don't know gets very rough it has no protection from the open ocean and is quite shallow ( around the 50m mark) i have know trouble believing your story at all.

Fishn-ads

I dive alot of wrecks and one in particular is situated of Kingscliff in 59meters of water we have dived this wreck alot over the years it is a 14m trawler and i have know idea what the weight of this vessel would be but it would weight abit. The bow of this wreck always pointed south the first two years that we dived it but about 2 weeks after very rough seas we dived it again and guess what the bow was pointing NE and the vessel had moved about 30m from its original resting place . What sort of sea do you think would be responsible for that?

During the last few years of Moreton Island we have had winds in the sixty knot range and the wave rider bouys have shown swells well in excess of 12m so i dont think 8m is at all huge.

Ian

Just remember that if you jump on a forum and say that you dont believe someones story you are infact calling that person a lair and to do this in a public forum is defamitory.

[redspeckle]

I am limted by how much fuel is on broad on the boat
But seriously I am limted by weather conditions /swell direction and crossing the south passage bar don't like go out to far from it so if weather condtion start to go bad I got to go back far to cross it again
I do argee with the a lot of comments it up to the skipper skills that he has aqnd experince
Mitch C'MON THE COWBOYSin 2006