Showing posts with label that. Show all posts
Showing posts with label that. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
That fish box is strong enough most of these guys just use them to keep the beer cold anyway
Nothing better than a good fish story, especially when the fish is so big, you can't spread your hands wide enough to show people how big it really is. The fish is a Warsaw grouper (hence forth referred to as Gigantor), caught in about 650' of water about 140 miles off the coast of Sarasota, and the best guess is that it exceeds 200 lbs. It took three people just to get it into the boat, and as you can see, it dominates a 6' fish box. I will add the actual weight in the comments box, when I get it later today.
The boat is a popular, and higher end center console fish boat, and in general, is a well constructed vessel. The owner loves to fish, I mean really loves to fish, and he does a lot of tournaments. The boat is crammed full with fishing gear, coolers, lot of extra gas containers, and bean bag chairs for over night expeditions.
So enough of Gigantor, see that black crack in the picture below, at the edge of the fish box? That is not where the fish box should be. The back of the box has fallen down about three inches, and now water, and or ice can slosh out of the back end of the box into an area, I suspect was not supposed to have water at all.
It was hard to tell exactly what had happened, because the box had Gigantor the grouper in it, and numerous spectators were hovering around, but the aft center of the box didn't appear to have anything fastening it.
The box seems at first blush, to have been just tabbed with fiberglass in the corners, and under the weight of the fish, and ice, the tabs just failed. The seas were calm, so I ruled out the fact that pounding in 4' seas, with Gigantor in the box could have exacerbated the problem. The attachment was just not adequate, and you can see the torn fiberglass in the corner below. Bad design? Bad manufacturing? I don't know, but this builder can do better than this. The repair will be interesting, because all of the fish box installation was done prior to installation of the deck. I'm sure that this builder will take care of the problem, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. If you want real fishermen to buy the boat, the fish box has to be able to support real fish. Gigantor has had the last laugh as payback for his untimely demise, and all the beer was kept in real coolers.
Just as a side note, I will amend this blog tomorrow with a couple additional photos of the grouper on the scales. The final measured weight is 206 lbs. It is worthy of the name "Gigantor", and boy did it produce some fillets.
Jason Boyll, from the fishing team" Get'n After It!" emailed me a picture of Gigantor hanging on the scales in Cortez Fl. It is impressive, and these guys are are fishing monsters.
Sunday, 9 April 2017
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Saturday, 1 April 2017
Whats that job
"Welcome everyone! I'm your host Larry Hokem, and this is What's that job, the game show in which contestants try to guess what job is being done. We have selected the first three players that could correctly spell the word boat, and now let's meet them."
"The first player is Captain Festus. Tell us a little about yourself." "My name isn't Captain, it's Capt. You see my pa was a little bit in his cups when he filled out the birth certificate. He meant to spell Capy, and he kinda screwed up. I'm a truck unloading trainee at Waldomart." "Well that's certainly interesting Capt, let's now meet Bobby. I understand you're in the music business Bobby, do you play in a band?" "No Larry, I download music albums from a website in Transylvania, and sell them at flea markets. Say this isn't being recorded is it?" "No Bobby, it's just being taped, so don't worry about it. And now on to Howie. Say that's quite a hook your sporting, and what in the world happened to your eye?" "Well Larry, I bet a friend I could get a wild wolverine to eat a steak from my hand, and it didn't exactly work out like I thought it would. I keep forgetting I have the hook, and I scratch myself when I get itchy, you should see my butt." "Oh my Howie, that is a facinating story, just don't get too excited today."
"Okay, you know how the game is played, I'm going to show you a picture, and you have one minute to write down your guess about What's that job."
"Let's see what our contestants guessed, starting with Capt who wrote "getting a jug job", nope, but nice try. Bobby said "filling the windshield fluid", sorry Bobby that's not right either, and Howie guessed "fixing the frig", no Howie, that's not correct, there is no frig in the pictures. Lets go to the next picture in the job sequence, and your one minute starts now."
"Okay, let's see how they did, starting again with Capt, who wrote "getting new jugs," you seem to have a jug thing going Capt, but no. Bobby penned "what is a empty space." No Bobby, and this isn't Jeopardy. Howie guessed "cleaning the slime." Well it is dirty Howie, but that's incorrect. Lets have the next picture."
"The minute is up, let's see what they guessed, this time starting with Bobby who guesses "making a CD smuggling place." Ah, no Bobby, that's not it. Howie has taken a shot at it, and wrote "making a ho." Interesting spelling Howie, but that's a nil, and Capt, let's see what you thought. Hmm, "making room for bigger jugs" won't cut it Capt, you seem to have a one track mind."
"This is the last picture folks, so give it your best. We will start with Bobby, you guessed "stealing copper wire to sell." I don't think so, and no you can't have my address. Capt? You really think the job is "looking for jugs", absolutely not, you don't have a girl friend do you? Okay Howie, this is your last shot, what did you write. "Looking for string." Well it's not right, but at least there is a string in the picture, so I will give you a point, and you win the home version of "What's that job." That's it for our show, and thanks for playing along at home. We will leave you with the first picture for next week's "Whats that job", and the word you have to spell is manure, so get started practicing now."
Pull door off, remove oil container, it's full, spill some on the deck, mutter, remove access hatch, still can't find transducer wire, force screw driver through gooey transom hole, still can't find transducer wire, mutter more, unclamp engine power lead, and find tip of screwdriver behind, gouge out inches of goo to free wire, pull in string, cut connector off of transducer wire, original transducer wire tie wrapped to harness, use best invective words, no conduit, use mirror, and flashlight, two hours later get fish in, pull god forsaken wire to console, splice connector back in, replace floor, put oil containers back in, spill more oil, clean up inside, replace hatch, clean up deck, wash filthy hands, bovine scatology at its worst.
Friday, 24 March 2017
Its that time of year again
It's only temporary and I will be back building at the end of summer....
Update end of Summer....well the Salmon proved elusive but I did manage to catch a best ever wild brown trout of 7.5lbs (returned) and a Tuna of about 40lbs (duly eaten by grateful crew on trip from Sicily to Greece!
Saturday, 18 March 2017
Hole of the week and Name that bad boat the new prime time game show
It's sweltering. The fan is roaring next to me, and I'm soaked to the bone in my own sweat. My arms are black and blue from the continual impacts against the sharp edges of a tiny access hole as I pull a cable. I think to myself, I shouldn't have enrolled in that marine installer's training school I saw advertised on that pack of matches. They promised me a glamorous and exciting career in marine technology. I should have drawn the picture of Blinky the clown, and gone to the "Famous Artist" school instead.
I'm just not happy. It's bad enough the working conditions are at times most odious, but the quality of the vessels I work on runs the gamut from fairly good, (never perfect) to lousy examples of design engineering, and implementation with the later predominating. Hearkening back to my very first posting, I made some rules, and set some journalistic standards, which I have maintained so far.
I'm just not happy. It's bad enough the working conditions are at times most odious, but the quality of the vessels I work on runs the gamut from fairly good, (never perfect) to lousy examples of design engineering, and implementation with the later predominating. Hearkening back to my very first posting, I made some rules, and set some journalistic standards, which I have maintained so far.
The point of this blog is to relate my every day frustrations with trying to install a wide variety of marine electronics on boats of all sizes and types. It is hoped that boat builders will read these postings, have an epiphany, and make the small changes needed to make my life easier, and hence save some of my clients hard earned dollars. I am going to abide by the rule, that I will leave the offending boat builders names out of the blog, but you know who you are, and straighten up.
The rules were simple. Do no harm. Use only close up photographs if you were pointing out someone's less than perfect design work or implementation, and don't publish the offenders names. Using the close up photos would allow the builders to recognize their own work, but it would be very difficult for the average reader to know whose bad work it was. I may change my mind about all of this.
The rules were simple. Do no harm. Use only close up photographs if you were pointing out someone's less than perfect design work or implementation, and don't publish the offenders names. Using the close up photos would allow the builders to recognize their own work, but it would be very difficult for the average reader to know whose bad work it was. I may change my mind about all of this.
Where do these stories come from? They are easy to find. Design and manufacturing malfeasance runs amok in the boating industry. The manufacturers don't seem to care, and often the buyers are clueless about what they're purchasing. Many are worrying more about the color of the hull, and stereo system, than what's actually inside of what they have purchased, and the downstream costs involved to maintain it.
I'm astounded at the excuses I hear from builders when I call them. One, when asked "Why won't the anchor locker design accommodate an anchor winch, and why does the anchor locker barely hold 150 of rode on a $250,000 fishing boat?" They said, "Where we live we pick up the anchor with the orange ball, and most fishermen troll." Great I think to myself, I have to tell the 70 year old owner that he has to reach over, and haul up not only the 40 lb anchor, but the large orange ball, and drag all of it into the boat along with the wet road, sort it all out, and stow it. Lets see, 7 to 1 scope, 150 feet of rode, let me think for a second, you can anchor safely in twenty feet of water on a windy day. Who are you kidding, you just didn't think about it, and not even a anchor bow pulpit, but the boat was colorful, and fast.
How about a brand new sizable motor yacht with a large hardtop, and there is only one small pull through the starboard side arch. There is no way to use the other side, and when the owner wanted to mount a second VHF antenna on the other side, it took 8 hours, a bunch of disassembly, and two people to get a single VHF wire through the arch. The builders response, "Huh!, we never thought someone would want a second VHF on the boat." The one side that you could do a pull through just barely accepted the needed wiring, and thank goodness for NMEA 2000, which reduced the number of cables that needed to be pulled. My thought was it would have added about 30 minutes, or less to the manufacturing time to make the second arch usable. Do you own a hole saw? Nobody would want a second VHF? Really now? Seriously?
The excuses go on and on. "We didn't think anyone would put a radar on the boat." "Well our customers just prefer danforth anchors so that's what we designed the anchor locker to use." "Gosh did they foam that area closed?" "We didn't think the bilge pump would fail, you will just have to cut a hole in the bulkhead to get to it." "Sorry, but you have to remove the (insert your favorite piece of equipment here) fuel tank, water tank, hot water heater, engine manifolds, exhaust systems, isolation transformer........ to get to it." "Golly, we don't have any wiring diagrams, or construction drawings to send you, let me ask one of the old guys on the line how they did it." "We forgot to put in a wire pull? Sorry about that, and no you can't do a warranty claim about it." "They want to install a chart plotter in the console? Well I never."
Okay, I've griped enough, and you get my acrimonious point. Few have listened to me, if any at all, and I suspect that it is because I don't call them out by name. Maybe if I included the make, year, and model of their boat in the story, they would pay closer attention to what is being said, or maybe they would sue me. What do you think? Angry wrathful Installer smiting the bad builders, or just stay a nice guy?
Oh yes, the hole of the week. The good news is there is a pull, the bad news is half of the hole is covered by a backing plate, and you couldn't get a human hair through the balance of the hole. WTF, how will I ever get a radar cable through that hole on this 2010 26' walk around made by.......
I should have drawn Blinky the clown, then I would just be writing about the sad state of modern art. Nope, not for me. Dealing with boats is like dancing the Tango, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you.
By the way, there are actually some good boats out there, and I will be talking about some of them very soon, and not in that boat test article sort of way about how pretty it is, and how fast it will go.
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