It's been a while since my last blog, I spent 3weeks away at sea and was hoping to post a blog whilst we were having a re-fit at Tom's boatyard, but we were so busy I never had time.


The fishing was good before we left for our re-fit and we have been working well to the west of the scillies. We have been seeing a good mix of fish from the usual haddocks, monks and megs to a nice few turbuts and some really good sized Dory's and hake's.









Jim with a very large hake




One such hake was a real monster, he was 12.5 kgs after being gutted, so I reckon he made a good feast for someone. This hake was the biggest we caught but there have been quite a few others of near simalar size.

The weather remained very settled for us right through april and up until the middle of may, when we laid up for our yearly Re-fit at Tom's, so we were able to put a few good trips in, from the grounds to the west.


I always look forward to heading up to Polruan for our yearly re-fit, it's a home from home for us, we usualy stop in hotel Crystal sea, but we pop over to the lugger for a couple of pints one or two  nights in the week and it's good to see everyone.

This year we had a lot to do, we had a major engine strip down to do as well as fitting a new net drum and plenty of work for the DTI survey (mot for boats), not to metion the usual mantainence and a good paint up.





Paul our engineer stopped up with us for 2weeks to work on the engine, he and Alec stripped and rebuilt the engine in 12days. That's some going, as we replaiced every moving part except for the crank. We had a new cam shaft, liners, pistons, front end and rear bearings, injectors and all new seals, so the engine has had a real good going over.

We also had a new net drum fitted on the starboard side, as the old drum was getting to the end of its life and had lost power whilst hauling, the net drum weighed 3.5tonnes and it was a really tight fit to get it into place so Tom's men had quite a job on their hands. We had all new steel work aft side for holding the guiding on poles for the net drums, and we had plent of caulking and re sheaving done around the hull.

We had a new rope box made for on top of the shelter to hold our spare bridle, all the blocks were stripped and the pins replace with the luggs built up, as well as all the usual matainence work.

We also have the E-Log fitted, so instead of filling the fishery log book out by hand, then handing it in at the end of a trip, it will all be done electronicly. The catch information will be passed onto to the MMO every day as the trip progresses and the information will be used to update the market and our PO of what the catch consists of daily.

This will be mandatery practice for all fishing vessels over 15meters by the end of july, but we wanted to make a start early to beat the rush and have time to get used to the system, which could prove quite useful in the long term.



With the boatyard in the center of the village, the people of Polruan get a diferent veiw evey couple of weeks.



Everyone worked really hard to get the work done ontime and as usual were are grateful to Allen and Paul for getting the boat ready and for the men at the yard for doing a fine job, The boat is looking good as well, as Steve the painter and his gang gave the boat a good paint up.

Special thanks to Paul the engineer who as usual pulled out all the stops to get the engine job done, it took some doing but we got there.

We brought the boat back from the yard last weekend and spent monday out swinging the compass and running a fire drill and practiceing man over board situation with mike from the MCA.

Then on tuseday we started to put the fishing gear back aboard and tested all the equipment to make sure everything was working as it should. On the wednesday we put the nets aboard and got the ice and grub aboard.

Alec sailed on wednesday evening after just over 3weeks for the re-fit and completeing our DTI survey he has headed out to the west, the fishing is still good and he is hoping to land tuesday or wednesday if all's well.