Sword Club meeting

[quack quack]

I would like to thank the club for letting me be a guest and sit in on last nights meeting.It was very informative on many subjects.I was surprised on how safety conscious the group as a whole was.One thing I can tell you no matter how prepared we think we are there is always room for improvement when safety offshore is the issue.A scientist from the UofM was there that had fished with many LLnrs doing many studies about them and how to improve the bycatch issues and many other things.He provided some very good info about how sat tags are used to study fish and how they work.I also met some people from this forum that I have wanted to meet and others that I did not know and liked them all.One of the guest speakers was Larry from Tow Boat US he answered many questions about towing and salvage.Most people mite not have liked his answers but he was honest about the situation.The most important things he stressed was the need to review your insurance policy to see how much they will pay for a salvage on your boat.A lot of policies only pay up to 5% of the boat value and the salvage person could charge up to 25% of value.$50k boat 15% salvage bill = $7,500 insurance pays 5%=$2,500 you would owe $5,000.He also said the second they hand you a pump it becomes a salvage operation even if you do not have any damage and just your batt died and you need to pump out a little water.He recommends bringing your own spare pump and battery to avoid that situation.Thanks again for letting me attend the meeting guys.

[RiskTaker]

Eric:

Good job on the debrief of the meeting last night. It was also a pleasure meeting you in person.

Yeah, on the way to work this morning I was also thinking just how informative last night's meeting was. Even though the annual membership is not that cheap, with that information presented, and that was just one of several that are conducted throughout the year: it is worth every penny. There is a great group of guys there!

Safety at sea is another one of those issues that is commonly discussed. Instilling the sense of awareness and urgency, that a single loss of a life whenever it will happen again is profound. And we need to be continually sharpening our skills on being safe out there. I left there with a few ideas bouncing around im my head , which I will bring up again at a later time.

In the meantime, keep on posting good safety stories on the Safety as Sea thread. http://www.swordfishingcentral.com/f...pic.php?t=4631 Please. Everybody has there own individual stories, and collectively many people can learn from others peoples mishaps before they are necessarily obligated to experience them personally.

Quack, Now that I know that you are not that far away afterall, we will have to find opportunities to get out fishing.

(Cogzwell, don't worry nothing was said bad about that guy that needed a tow from the 50 a few weeks back, well maybe just something about whimpie flares, that is all. An idea was presented to have those meteor flares for offshore and to stuff several into a seal-a-meal bag. Not a bad idea. ) I was just checking mine the other day and realized that I no longer have the 25mm pistol (it went with the Grady White for sale). So I checked the 12 guage pistol and realized that I could not even open the barrel: it was stuck good. Needless to say a new 25 mm is on the shopping list along with 3 meteor flares, plus the baseline stuff.