1st Bluewater Trip in the Books!!
My god what an absolute TANK this boat is!!!
With our weather window closing quickly and rough seas predicted we pulled away from the dock early friday morning. Made a little bait in the inlet then turned south for a 30 mile ride to a water break near the nipple. Seas were 2-4' and choppy/nasty. The hatt cut right through them with no problem. We trolled and picked up a few wahoo and a mahi, overnighted at the spur (Desoto Canyon) where the action was slow but seas were like glass. We actually had a baby swordfish swim through the underwater lights.
Picked up a few blackfin tuna overnight and at 2am the seas started picking up. We abandoned the drift and turned the boat with the waves at idle speed, set the auto pilot and rode out the night. (with someone on watch of course)
At sunrise seas were solid 4' with some 6' mixed in. By 10am seas were 6-8' with an occasional 10' mixed in. The waves were stacked up tight with about a 6 sec period.
We trolled our way in most of the way going with a quartering sea and occasionally turned into the sea to check out a fad...etc.
At about 15 miles out we hit our last spot, pulled in the lines and planed out for the rest of the ride. Seas were back down to 4-6' at this point.
I cannot get over how well the boat handled all of this. It literally blows my mind... In our old ocean it would have been a non-stop workout for the captain just keeping the boat straight, but the hat tracked true and the auto pilot was able to handle the duty in all but the nastyness of the 8-10'ers.
Had a couple of long-time fishermen onboard who were blown away that we were still able to fish in this. Had a couple of saltwater greenhorns onboard whose eyes got big as saucers at some of the waves we were seeing. It did get rocky/rolly at times, but she rolled with predictable motion, not snappy/jerky.
I've owned multiple sized boats over the years, and I've had my fair share of pucker factors in almost all of them. I can honestly say even though we were in the roughest seas I've ever been in, I never even got the least bit of pucker. Never did we bang, or shudder. Never did I ever feel like we were even close to being swamped, heck we only took spray over the bow a few times. In the words of Pascoe, she stepped on the waves with little more effort than stepping on a column of ants!
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/923/4...4d65a386_c.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/882/2...fa91f577_c.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/837/3...562bfb1a_c.jpg
https://farm1.staticflickr.com/830/4...e4165192_c.jpg
Re: 1st Bluewater Trip in the Books!!
Re: 1st Bluewater Trip in the Books!!
Nice! Thanks for sharing!
Re: 1st Bluewater Trip in the Books!!
Re: 1st Bluewater Trip in the Books!!
Ditto. Looks like a great trip.
