Building 23' catamaran. Build updates

[koastal]

Hi I came across this boat whilst looking for a glacier bay.
Do you have any peformance data on this as it looks intriguing.

Sent your seller an email also

Good luck with the hip also

[stevemid]

Well gday folks,
Been absent for a while due to some personal issues, but I'm back on board (here and on the boat) now and fired up for a new season of boating and fishing. As with building, I've got a lot to learn. I started last Monday targeting (week ago) flathead with this result. This are both right on 40 cm.
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And then yesterday morning, after trolling around a bit looking for bust ups, I went targeting flathead again and found this one, a strong 50 cm.
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Just a quick question on the sounder. How would you interpret this? Would these be baitfish? Assuming yes, how would you burley them up, assuming I'm anchored and it's mid-tide so a fair bit of current.
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[Fed]

Dead dogs, used condoms & Macca's wrappers Steve.

[Rip it up]

Turn your gain up a little bit. You should see a gradient in colour on the bottom. Not just solid red.


Damo's dodgy boat building repair centre.

[stevemid]

I will try that. Been at the University of YouTube looking at tutorials. Thanks guys.


I stand behind everything I say, except usually I'm prone.

[stevemid]

Being both a cruising boat and a fishing boat, I have the problem of having to swap in and out my fishing accessories like the rod holders and the bait board.


My problem led me to using the Railblazza system and mounting their receptacles on the safety rails. This allows me to swap out the rod holder for a cup holder and to put the bait board away when not in use. Good in theory but bad in practice. The receptacles are mounted with phillips head screws and you just can't get enough torque on them to make 'em stick to the rails. So when the rod is in the holder and a largish fish strikes, the holder rotates till the rod is pointing at Davey Jones' locker and soon to head in that direction! That's why I've been keeping lanyards on my rods. I had the same problem with my bait board. Every time I leaned on it is spun, spilling its contents either in the sea or the cockpit: very bad depending whether it was knives, tools or pilchards on the bait table.

For the rod holders I made a little brace out of 1/4" ID aluminium tubing. Into the end that rests on the gunnel I force fitted a plastic pin with a head on it from the sailboat spares. This has no give in it at all and I'm sure will work in all situations except if I have the drag on the reel fully locked up and get hit by a whale.

For the bait table, which I made out of the same stuff the boat's made from, instead of having two mounts in-line, I moved one of the mounts to sit at right angles to the other. Now one attaches to the crosswise rail and the other one to the fore and aft rail. In use, there is a full cutting board that sits over the mounting bolts. This is now solid as. Having never set up a fishing boat before I'm having to figure out all this stuff as I go - but I suppose that's half the fun: spending money on my pride and joy.
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[scottar]

You can stop the mounts rotating by drilling and tapping a bolt through the mount and into the rail from underneath Steve. I had to do this with some rail mount holders we used for chasing barra on my old tinnie for the exact same reasons. As far as burleying fish with a bit of run - best method is to use a weighted cage to get the burley to the bottom as if you throw it in at the surface it will be miles away in no time. Another device that can be useful at times is known as "The secret weapon" - basically a weighted container that you attach to a line, fill it with burley then throw over the side allowing the line to free spool until it reaches the desired depth. You then pull hard and the container dumps its contents and can be retrieved.

https://www.whitworths.com.au/main_i...136&item=36459

[stevemid]

Thanks Scott,
I've now got two burley buckets that I can get the burley down with. One that releases when it hits the bottom, the other weighted that I just suspend. I've had the best luck so far letting the bucket sit on the bottom but I'm fishing in the harbour max 15m and I havent had a fish tangled up in the bucket line YET!. I've attached a picture of my rails under construction. Yes, conduit wrapped with fibreglass. I'm sure a screw would hold by I'm not sure I have the rod holders where I want them yet, so I'll wait to mount them permanently. (But truth be told, I hadn't thought of just putting a screw in there! duh)


Cockpit Rail Vertical.jpg

[scottar]

One thing you can do if you want to get the bucket away from the back of the boat to try and avoid tangles is to fashion coils similar to those on a tackleback so you can slide the burley bucket down your anchor rope with a separate rope to retrieve it. You can just attach it to the anchor rope and send it down when you anchor but then you have to pull the anchor if you want to fill the cage again.

[stevemid]

The main problem I had to overcome, because the boat lives on a mooring, was to be able to keep the transducer and related stuff up out of the water except when fishing. After a lot of experimenting, here is where I'm up to so far: I mounted 600mm tracks either side of the boarding platform for two transducers. One for the sonar at the helm station, another for a sonar in the back which will be mounted right next to the baitboard. A reinforced flat bar with a thumbscrew runs inside the track. This allows me to raise and lower the transducers. To this track I have also mounted a small bait pump. This is wired to a Flowrite variable pump timer which allows me to run the pump as infrequently as every 12 minutes. I used a 20 L water can for the bait tank. This has rounded edges so the yakkas don't congregate in a corner. Water is pumped into the top of the tank (if I pump into the bottom, the water drains out through the pump when the pump shuts off.) A 90 degree elbow is in the bottom threaded fitting that came with the tank. I've attached a length of hose to this pointing upward so that the tank overflows when 7/8 full. To empty the tank I just turn the elbow fiting to point the over flow hose downward. The recently added boarding ladder, which is down in the last picture, folds up and is bungee strapped to the rails. This keeps the tank in place when I'm fishing. When I'm done fishing, everything can be put away in lockers. In that case the boarding ladder folds up and lays flat on the boarding platform.

This seems to work ok but regurgitated food seems to accumulate quite quickly in the tank. Is that just something to live with?
Steve

[stevemid]

Finally got my helm seat in. I got the two locking hinges from Whitworths for $33 each. 6" high density foam. When the seat is down, I can still stand between it and the steering wheel. With the seat up it's mounted quite high so I can see directly in front of the boat. I have a 250mm step stool to rest my feet on.
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[cwcarter]

Hi Steve,
Can you put up a link or part number for the hinges please.
-Craig.

[koastal]

Did I see this boat in hervey bay about a fortnight ago ?