August 23, 2008

Temp: 24 - 26 degrees C
Wind: South at approx 6m/s with 8m/s gusts
Distance travelled: 39.1km
Average speed: 14.7km/h
Time on the water: 2 hours 39 minutes

Spent the day on the Tornado with John and Richard, in great weather conditions. The wind stayed constant until we got back to the beach. Sea conditions were a mix of light choppy water inshore and some more challenging waves outside the bay. Lots of hull flying excitement and crashing waves. Landed on a beach near Makuchi and climbed to the top of the hill in search of somewhere for lunch. Minchikus everywhere but no restaurants. Bought some light lunch bits at a local shop and went back to the beach to eat, before heading back out into the action. Returned to the beach and dragged the boat onto the rack - seemed a lot heavier after the sailing workout. Drank a well earned beer afterwards and ate some banana muffins that Richard baked before breakfast;-)

Camera work was a bit sloppy today in the rough seas

The Boat


The Route



The Action

July 5, 2008

Looking at the video you'd think we had a great day sailing. Actually we had light winds to begin with and stopped for lunch at at restaurant between Enoshima and Kamakura with slowest service I've ever seen. The service was slow even the wind got fed up and left. My two passengers Jona and Osada-san had to paddle the boat back ......... about 2km to Zushi, but without paddles.

June 29, 2008

June 14, 2008

June 8, 2008

June 1, 2008

Temp: 21 C

Wind: Northwest, moving to the south late in the afternoon (offshore) 5 – 7m/s, clear skies

Trip: 1h37m

Distance: 20.9km

Max speed: 27.9km/h

Average speed: 12.9km/h

Seaweed: none

Nets: some inshore but well marked

Today we had Simon along for his first ride in a Tornado. Most of the MMHC members were at the club today, the first day of summer. Hopefully this will be the case for the rest of the season ‘cause we need lots of hands to move the boat on and off the storage rack.

John had a number of options to solve a problem he’s been having getting the sail head to lock in place – after 4 attempts he came up with a solution using a steel bracket, the halyard and a piece of string.

By the time we hit the water the winds have died down but the Tornado doesn’t need a lot a winds to take off. We sailed out into the bay and back to the beach for lunch. After lunch the winds picked up and we had some wet sailing while flying a hull. We almost left Simon on behind – the winds had begun to change and the boat nearly leapt off the beach. Simon had great time watching his dad getting splashed while sitting on the windward hull.

When we got back we had plenty of help getting the boat back on the rack.

May 30, 2008

Stats:

Temp: 15 C

Wind: north east (offshore) 5 – 7m/s, overcast, threatening to rain all day but no delivery

Trip: 3h48m

Distance: 35.5km

Max speed: 22.5km/h

Average speed: 9.8km/h

Seaweed: none

Nets: none to speak of but there did seem to be lots of pots about.

Picked up the Hobie Wave at 9am. Numano-san went through the rigging with me – as with any new boat it seemed daunting to begin with but its pretty straight-forward compared to the Tornado. I thought it came with a tiller extension but it didn’t – this could be a problem in light winds where I’d expect to move my weight forward ie away from the fixed tiller.

Perfect conditions today for breaking in a new boat; good strong offshore wind with little or no waves, overcast and very few windsurfers to run over (maybe not quite perfect). Had a hull out of the water within 30 mins and spent most of the day playing with the gusts and practicing tack and jibes. Jibes were effortless – cats have so much momentum, when running downwind the sail comes across without any loss of speed. Tacks were fine for the most part but there was on point where I ended up on irons. It would appear that the boat needs speed going into the tack but as it turns I need to increase the push on the tiller.