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First trip offshore


Fluid36

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Hi all,

I have a 5m fiberglass runabout (v17r) and have spent the summer in enclosed waters just familiarizing myself with the boat.

I now want to head offshore, nothing major but just to drift for some flatties off Barrenjoey in around 50m.  Any major tips weather wise and things to be mindful of before I take this first trip offshore?  Swell wise I'm thinking max 1.5m and looking for a calm light wind day with solid forecast.

Cheers

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You will be fine start at 50mtr mark and keep going deeper if you keep catching under size I went out yesterday and bagged out it is a fair way out as depth drops slowly so make sure you have enough fuel also make sure you have sinkers to hold bottom.weekends normally find a few other boats out there. do you have all safety gear?

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Great boat & good advice above generally sinkers in 4,6,8,10 & 12oz will cover most situations for varying currents & wind main thing is to stay in contact with the bottom every now & then letting more line out will help 

Weather wise what you’ve described &    re swell the wider apart it is the more comfortable you’ll be (eg 14 seconds & no wind or cross seas  can even be comfortable up to 2m+ as it becomes an undulating ride as long as there’s stable conditions forecast 

Re fuel a good rule is 1/3 to run out & moving around, 1/3 back & 1/3 for safety backup (50m is approximately 8 km offshore 

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Thanks for all the replies.

I have got all the safety gear for offshore.

I have a 2004 70hp 2 stroke Yammy, maybe bit underpowered but I get 30 knots out of it with standard prop, re-propping may be an option. 

I've got a 75 litre tank and I've seen max fuel consumption for this engine quoted at 28lph.  Assuming I travel 8km at 15knts - that's 17 minutes which is 8 litres of fuel.  I'll fill her up and should be plenty in reserve.

Thanks for the tips on weights and location.  The rig I like to use is a black magic flasher with a slow jig in place of the sinker.  Seems to work well.

 

 

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Lots of great advice given above already. The V17 is a solid hull with a good reputation - you now need to build your experience and confidence... take your time there's no need to rush it. There's great fishing grounds out there, but take an approach of safety first, and most importantly experiment slowly so that you learn how your boat handles certain conditions and how it responds to your controls under those conditions. A good hull can help overcome small errors and will help you build your experience - but the most important factor in boating is skipper experience. There was a saying I posted previously "We all start out with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience - the objective is to fill our bag with experience before we run out of luck ! ".

Personally on your first few trips, I would look for conditions with less than 1m swell as max.

The waters coming out of broken bay can quickly pick up  and be so choppy they present a danger to small craft. This happens under conditions such as a falling tide facing an easterly wind. As a result Maritime has classified the area from Juno/Flint and Steel to the heads as limited open waters if swell is under 0.5m and OPEN waters if swell is over 0.5m.  That gives you an idea of what can happen within the estuary .... so at the heads, and 8km beyond the conditions can be even worse. 

I have a 6m+ ocean going hard top haines and I have had waves break over my bow and onto the windscreen coming back into broken bay ... all the way to patonga.

Have a quick read of this summary - I have posted the link to the full fishraider article below as well. 

""The rule of thumb for wind and swell is you get 1m of swell for every 10kts of wind, where the wind has been been blowing across the ocean for quite some distance. So a 20kt sou'easter will bring up a 2m SE swell.

On top of the swell you get the "sea" which is the effect of the local wind. So a 1m swell with a 0.5m sea means 1.5m. This is called the combined sea state.

Whenever you read a weather report containing wave heights it is important to remember these are an average, be prepared to meet waves up to twice that height !!!!!!!! This is why you must know your vessel limits because you may be able to handle 1m seas peaking at 2m but can you survive 2m seas peaking at 4m.

How often does this happen? All the time !!!! This is what led to the total loss of a 6.0m long vessel off Long Reef last year in seas around 1.5m when they were suddenly confronted with a set of four 4m waves that went straight over the nose green and filled it completely. The vessel rolled over in less than 20 secs, and this was a 2C commercially built vessel."

...and this is the article with the Maritime open waters classification for Broken Bay ..

Cheers Zoran

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Yeah zoran is spot on I’ve had plenty of times weather reports were good get out on water and conditions have been scary as hell not much fun heading in when you’re scared shitless  keep an eye conditions if things change head in 

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Thanks Zoran and others.

 

You've got me a bit worried with that sort of talk, definitely food for thought on sea conditions and the need to be extra cautious. I think I'll take your advice and max it out to 1m swell. 

My main fishing buddy is a poor swimmer and has cerebral palsy so I need to be mindful of him as well.

I grew up fishing in open waters in 12 foot tinnies.  This was on the east coast of Northland in New Zealand though so I think things are a bit more predictable there, or they seem to be anyway from what I've seen.

Thanks for the extra posts, I'll read those as well.

 

 

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Well with that background and the v17 you’ll do well in a very short time. Just remember to leave some fish for me !

All the best. 
cheers Zoran 

ps - sorry didn’t mean to scare you. I have experienced the barrenjoey heads since the 70-80s.  So just speaking from experience. 

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25 minutes ago, zmk1962 said:

Well with that background and the v17 you’ll do well in a very short time. Just remember to leave some fish for me !

All the best. 
cheers Zoran 

ps - sorry didn’t mean to scare you. I have experienced the barrenjoey heads since the 70-80s.  So just speaking from experience. 

No need to apologize -  much appreciated thanks Zoran, local advice is what I'm after and what you've given me here is really valuable.

I'm happy to take a conservative approach and worry about enjoying the fishing and not stressing about the weather.

So light winds and swell <1m for at least the first few times, including a window of weather that is longer term and looking at coming back in before midday.

 

Cheers

Edited by Fluid36
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