new guy

[seascapes]

Hi , retired guy Bournemouth / Poole - just purchased 15ft Ab with 75 hp merc

saying hello - anyone local who can help with local knowledge / launching - places to use it ?

thanks

[paulbrown22]

Welcome!

Have a search on here for Poole Harbour and similar terms, and there's lots of threads about local launch sites around Poole/Wareham/Studland/Swanage/Weymouth, etc., and things to do.

I love just pottering around Poole Harbour, Brownsea Island, up the river to Wareham, and out to Studland and Swanage, no need to necessarily do massive distances if you don't want to. Obviously there's a 10kn speed limit in Poole Harbour between April and October, with 6kn in certain places year round.

Or if you're towing to launch anyway, you could consider going east and into the Solent - loads of places to explore if you launched somewhere there on the mainland side between Lymington and Portsmouth. Solent launch sites are fairly well discussed on here as well if you have a search.

Boatlaunch is another reasonable starting place for some research, although I don't believe it's necessarily super up to date.

[seascapes]

Hi Paul
Thank you for the reply :

I will dig deeper on here for nuggets of info - I will also try to sort cut this ( being now over 60 ) and see if I can get some professional help on tips / launch / rules / practice

I used to live on the hamble 15 years ago and sailed bigger boats .. so not a complete novice - but Poole / power / and well out of practice !!

my new purchase seems like a toy to a 300 ha ha

[paulbrown22]

Plenty of options locally for professional training if that's what you want - I'd certainly recommend it. An RYA Powerboat Level 2 course is always a good refresher and/or intro to small boat handling, or potentially some own boat tuition with an RYA instructor.