So both 'Sea Angler' and 'Saltwater Boat and Angling' magazines have been following the progress of the Facebook group since the beginning. Saltwater did a feature on the group last year highlighting the popularity and indeed resurgence in fishing from an inflatable boat. This weekend it was Sea Angler's turn to grab some snaps so I was pleased to meet up with Dave Lewis at Lymington yacht club slipway to demonstrate how easy it is to set up and launch the new IBF boat from the back of my van.
An early start leaving Eastbourne at 7am to beat the traffic I arrived at the gorgeous looking Lymington harbour in time to meet Dave with his camera equipment.
I had the boat set up from the van to the water in under 20 minutes and that was taking my time really while chatting away answering Dave's inquisitive questions to add to the feature. The air deck is actually built in to the design and so its simply a case of unrolling and inflating the three tubes, one air deck and the keel effortlessly. It was assembled in no time. It was low tide when we arrived but with the great slipway Lymington has to offer it was simple to launch.
After a little struggle to get far in enough to start the engine I was off and passing Dave up and down the pontoon where he was eagerly directing me and snapping away.
The engine had been recently serviced with a full carb clean so threw out a bit of smoke on start up but that soon disappeared before sounding like a purring tiger.
We didn't have much time to get any serious shots as Dave had to dash off but he got the important ones in and I look forward to seeing the spread in the magazine next month.
Plans were made to have another shoot while out fishing next time with more time on our hands.
Overall I was pleased with the maiden voyage albeit a short one. Next time out will be the real test.