The last trip we had there was a huge swell running all week, the swell was coming from the southwest as usual, but the swell was a good 30-40feet at times, which made the fishing difficult at times.











It is hard to capture the size of the swell at sea without some kind of prespective as the boat just rides the sea, but I tried my best. It would have been easier to get a shot of another fishing boat, but there was no one else around.




The pressure in the mid-atalantic was very low, with a low of 933mb west of Ireland, so that was the reason for the huge persistant swell. The fishing wasn't bad but we were down on the monks and flatfish due to the swell lifting our gear and the nets losing contact with the seabed.

We fished for five days and managed to put a trip together, with a good mix of squid, whitens, haddocks, pollock, gurnards, cuttles and a few monks and flats. The weather wasn't the best for the trip with 6-7 oc 8 most of the trip from the southered.




View of the old harbour from Newlyn slip.


The last few trips we have noticed our fuel consumption had been up, we usually slip the boat every six months so we can jet spray the hull, but the tides were not right at xmas to slip the boat.
So with the big spring tide and a run of poor weather we made good use of the time to get the boat up the slip.


With the big swell even causing a run in Newlyn harbour we entered the slip wednesday afternoon and Andrew, Roydon and Peter did a great job lining the boat up in the cradle considering the surging the boat was doing.








The boat safely up the slip.

With the boat safely up the slip we started to jetsrpay the bottom, this is best done as soon as possible as the weed comes off far easier if the hull remains wet.








Alec jetspraying the nozzel


It took us 5hours to blast all the weed off but by thursday morning all the weed had gone and we got about the hull cleaning the earthing plates and checking the hull for any damage or electrollese. We painted any bare patches with some anti fouling, then on thursday afternoon, we headed back down the slip.












Janis and Sandris having a break.

We headed up to the ice plant after we come off the slip then got the grub aboard and with theweather looking better for a few days we headed off to sea that evening.

With the hull all cleaned we are seeing a 12% fuel saving of 7 ltrs an hour wich is a fair bit come the end of the week so well worth the effort.