wildcard

I got a bit of movement I must admit.. Alan

IMO Whitby is without doubt one of the best - if not THE best port to charter a boat to fish for cod from. If anglers want to drift fish for cod and ling over rough ground and wrecks then Whitby is one of the best at that type of angling. To say it is the best CHARTER port in the UK though is nonsense. None of the best charter boats in the UK are resident there, and existing charter boats do not cater for different species whereas other ports do. Poole is just one of them. http://www.poolecharterboats.co.uk/boatcharter.php If drift fishing for cod is your thing then just up the road in Hartlepool this cat will kick the pants off anything in Whitby; This video was shot 6 days ago, bigger catches have been recorded since. £35 per man for 10 hours fishing. Spotlessly clean boat with massive deck space. COP 60 with very experienced skipper. Hartlepool marina has had £60 million spent on it; http://www.hartlepool-marina.com/ It is good enough to hold the 'tall ships' this year which will bring 1m visitors over 3 days. Facilities include. Toilets and showers. Cheap (£3 per day) and available car parking next to the pontoon. Trolleys for anglers gear. Restaurants, bars, f&c shop, one of the biggest tackle shops around. 24hr Tesco, 24hr Asda, McDonalds (3), Burger King, KFC (2), Fatsos, Toby carvery, Focus DIY, B&Q, proper bowling alley, cinema, Mecca bingo, Premier Inn (2), etc, etc. IMO many ports have moved forward in charter boats and facilities. Whitby hasn't moved anywhere in 20 years. I am a realist, but it dosent sit well with some people. Alan

John Brennan was no doubt the best skipper ever to come out of Whitby, but he was also a very forward thinking and radical businessmen. He realised the advantage of a unique selling point (USP). Before 'chieftain' came on the market he was considering having a very big catamaran built which would cope with cat1 of the COP. As his plans were being drawn up, the MOD put an ex Royal Navy vessel up for sale called 'Alnmouth', an ex Aberdovey Class fleet tender no less. Like all RN vessels she was superbly over engineered and for sale at a bargain price. John realised with a bit of outfitting she could take anglers on journeys that were unheard of previously. He cancelled the cat and bought her, did the work and renamed her 'chieftain'. A boat which could fill the USP in Whitby and cope with Cat 1 of the COP was now in place. She was an instant success and in later years he sold her allowing him to retire at 53. In 2007 both he and I got a sniff of a cat called a 'hyuscat' which was a cat designed by a racing boat designer called Professor Bob Van Niekerk of Boatloft, SA. This hull design blew everything away. The rumour was that a man called Nick Rich had brought the mould over to the UK and had set up a company called Swiftline Marine to produce them. Both John and I realised independantly that this boat would fill a second USP in Whitby which was cat2 of the COP (up to 60 miles). When I called Nick Rich to have one built he informed me a chap in Whitby had already enquired about having one built, a Mr. J Brennan. Alan

I am pleased you are doing well Paul, plenty of nice spraggs around at the moment. The new vid looks good. Alan

I dont know whether JB would have skippered her for me or not, discussions were still in an early stage before he passed away. He was impressed with the video of the boat and the fact she was COP 60. Achates was the love of his life I think, but she needs a mountain of work doing before she is workable. Alan.

John Brennan made enquiries to Swiftline marine to have a very special cat built but it would have been 3 years in the making. We had planned to meet up on his return to the UK for him to test run my swiftcat. If he had, he would probably be my skipper now. Unlike others I dont look at Whitby (or anywhere else) through rose tinted spectacles. Scarborough council long since abandoned the needs of Whitbys anglers in favour of the tourists pound. Anglers sometimes spend hours driving there yet there is are no dedicated car parking spaces for them or toilets. Alan

How long before we see these on sale? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXrG28pZXE8...player_embedded Alan

I think one of the reasons it costs so much to get insurance is the crooks who over charge the insurance companies to repair vehicles. One of our drivers backed our works van into another van in a car park and dented the back panel. It cost £2,300 to repair a 5 yr old vehicle. Legalised robbery. Alan

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...shell-4-95.html Alan

Like it, very witty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9FynhRbjk...feature=related

Good point. Another anomaly in sexual discrimination is if a man is sunbathing naked in his garden and a female neighbour sees him through a crack in the fence he would be classed as 'a flasher'. If the same female was sunbathing naked in her garden and the male peered through the same crack in the fence he would be classed as 'a peeping tom' Go figure..

Saw this on the news recently; http://www.metro.co.uk/news/824953-man-ban...-broke-his-asbo I dont think hes got the legs for it and his colour co-ordination is all wrong, but what do I know...

Is it called an erection if its a well hung parliament? I'll get my coat..

Very worrying. I have noticed on my own forum I get lots of new users with names like viagraprixx viagraonline, coolmeds etc. Using the who-is thing finds they are from all over the world. I accidently gave one access and the forum was plastered with posts straight away.

Thats gotta hurt methinks; I thought you just took the drain plug out to do an oil change? How to lose your girlfriend? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd9-2McS-Cw&NR=1

I particularly like the last one..

Heres another one to debate; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8554041.stm Q Who would pay for these lawyers to represent the animals? A The tax payer of course.

What do you make of this; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12...ch-privacy.html

I did this last year; It was summer and I was sat in casualty when a bloke came in with a little mackeral spinner stuck in his thumb. After checking in he came and sat down and announced that he had got a treble hook embeded in himself. In true crockodile Dundee style I said 'thats not a hook - this is a hook!' and showed him my piercing. I can just imagine the bloke in the photo above doing something similar to me ha! Alan

What do you want to know? Alan

Try this one Barry, this is the current situation along with a forecast; http://www.xcweather.co.uk/?Loc=GB Alan

I was talking to the lad who caught a 30lb halibut from a private boat only a few miles out of Whitby this summer. I was amazed he caught the fish as the conditions were terrible. There had been heavy rain and the sea was like milky tea with a biggish tide and a good Westerly blowing! He must have just dropped his bait straight in front of it I reckon, but that's fishing. Alan

Beautifully marked fish Ivan, well done Alan

We had a great day out wrecking yesterday. The weather and tide was near perfect with a few fish for the young guns as well as the experienced anglers. Alan