A FISHERMAN’S PARADISE AND AN ENGINEER’S DREAM

After finding the perfect lake, I find myself in a dream world, fishing from the country club it is pointed out that there is a boat, so off we go and what do I find?
A dust covered Proto-Type Solar Powered 10 metre Passenger Boat!
The covers come off and I check the batteries and they are a bit low, so I decided to discharge them fully and we push out into the lake. The solar is not running well as the dust on the panels is thick stopping the sunlight, this I knew before and I thought I would use it to an advantage to properly cycle the batteries. There are the squeaks and groans from an un-serviced system, but it moved and the energy was from the sun. It was impressive, so after running the batteries down we parked it up with instructions to clean the Solar Cells (panels) and park it in the sun.

 ITS SO QUIET, ITS STEALTH!!!

Well the lake, a boat, I am scared to awaken and find myself elsewhere! But to be honest the boat did not fit the bill for fishing. Having played in Proto-Type Engineering in a past trade the brain went into fishing mode.
We needed more rod room and a fighting chair, with this it was off to the designers and Management suggested a Bar was needed for the waiter to work from, well what can you say? OK!
Because there are a few boating nutters out there I will give you some of the specs.
About 10 meters long by 3meters wide
Dual hulls…… haha it’s a Cat
24 sq/metres of Solar Cells plugged into 2 banks of 12v batteries, it is running a 36 Volt system.
This is matched up to 3 electric motors, 2 that are keel inboards with rudders, and one interesting unit that is an out board that has had its power head removed and an electric motor fitted.
This motor system gives amazing control of the boat. But it does leave for three props in the water!
So we are moving the fishing up front. The Captain will sit directly behind the angler who will fish from the Game Chair. By putting the angler in the bow it means we have a great angle to work the line from port to starboard with great communication for maneuvering. Both people are within arms reach of the bar so refreshments are always on hand, this is not meant to infer it is a drunken fishing time, but it is very hot here in Bangkok and when fishing like this you need to have A LOT of fluid intake!

Now this lake is no easy fishing park! Please don’t think this is a no skill no risk lake! This has been some of the hardest fishing in my life that is a worry, there are big fish here and as yet not hooked.
It’s an old quarry, that is 35 metres (110 ft) deep and 50 acres in area, it’s full of building piles going at times the full 35 meters!! Not to mention that the bottom still has old mining gear down there!
The big fish have been living a natural feeding pattern, so this has been a hard nut to crack with the targeting. As a rule it would not be hard to hook up but the targeting is another thing, there are large Arapaima in the lake so the use of meat is out of the question, this is due to the problems with the Arapaima gut hooking. This leaves the bread and Lam, we have been doing some feeding and testing of the waters with some amazing results! But the Really Big fish have not been biting.
The Boat has allowed us to move about the lake and try different fishing spots, we have been dealing with the design engineers to make this boat into something more in line with fighting Big Fish and also for the Lure and Fly Fisherman. They will just love what in store for them, the fish that have been purchased just to up the numbers in some species and to add a few more.
The designs are nearly finished so it is off to the shop to have the refit very soon. I will be posting some pictures of the boat and its refit as time goes by.
The before shots, I will post more photos of the Solar Boat Re-fit as it happens