Furthest offshore in your V boat

[bgreene]

My prior V21 ….about 20 miles out.

Caught cod on a wreck.

[Blue_Runner]

70+ but only once that far. Weather kicked up for the drive home. Ouch! But used to regularly go bottom fishing 40 - 50 on bluebird days. I lost some of my V boat risk appetite after that one long drive home.

[bgreene]

Originally Posted by Blue_Runner

70+ but only once that far. Weather kicked up for the drive home. Ouch! But used to regularly go bottom fishing 40 - 50 on bluebird days. I lost some of my V boat risk appetite after that one long drive home.

70+ offshore means 140 + round trip, using quite a bit of the fuel range.
Did you bring extra fuel ?

[Blue_Runner]

I did bring extra fuel, had above deck 15 gallons plus another 5 gallon can or two. Still worried about running out after beating our way back taking wind and waves to the face. The v21 holds 63 gallons by the way. I know because I pumped the tank completely out and filled it up with 63 gallons.

[Pipe_Dream]

Originally Posted by Blue_Runner

I did bring extra fuel, had above deck 15 gallons plus another 5 gallon can or two. Still worried about running out after beating our way back taking wind and waves to the face. The v21 holds 63 gallons by the way. I know because I pumped the tank completely out and filled it up with 63 gallons.

Tremendous.

I never took the Pipe Dream more than about 8 miles offshore to one of our artificial reefs. On that day a typical summer storm popped up and like Blue I had to go into it to get home. That's just another thing I like about fishing in the Keys, if one pops up just go east or west to get around it.

I'm much happier in something more substantial offshore, 28 feet or more.

[phatdaddy]

I've taken mine 30-40 miles out of the pass. but usually no more than 20 miles offshore. This was when i was doing a lot of diving, so depth was a factor, under 120 ft or less. Tried to keep it where there was not very much decompression time.

I would have loved to have had the four stroke range back then.

[bgreene]

Originally Posted by Blue_Runner

I did bring extra fuel, had above deck 15 gallons plus another 5 gallon can or two. Still worried about running out after beating our way back taking wind and waves to the face. The v21 holds 63 gallons by the way. I know because I pumped the tank completely out and filled it up with 63 gallons.

Catch anything out there ?

[Blue_Runner]

65 miles to the gulfstream out of Murrells Inlet, SC. Headed out to troll ballyhoo for about 2 hours, then stop and bottom fish on the way in. Went to Winyah Scarp to then headed to the Georgtown hole and beyond. We caught 2 gaffer mahi on that trip. Dropping back in to a spot 55 miles from the rocks about 120 ft, I don't remember exactly how many bottom fish but the box got pretty full of triggerfish, silver snapper, vermillion snapper, as it did every time I ever went to that spot. Once you started catching triggers they would follow the boat around on the drift. A few of them were 5 lbers.

[bgreene]

Adventurous for sure !
How many hours was the ride back in the chop….ugh that’s not fun.

I’ve run into real 2’-4’ tight white cap chop on ocean in my V21 and it was not fun.
Tucked in behind a work boat that helped quite a bit .
If all goes as planned I’ll have a full report on how my 233 (24’) Formula handles chop.
Ran it last summer and hugely impressed but more conditions to evaluate .

[Blue_Runner]

It started off fine for the first 10 miles or so it was looking like we would be back in about 2.5 hours. Once it kicked up we of course had to slow down. I couldn't afford to go the comfortable route by just coming off plane and plowing through it because of fuel concerns. I don't know how long it took to get back but it was one of those deals where it was gonna be 2.5 hours, then over an hour later it became 3 hours LOL. Would've been no big deal with plenty of fuel.