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.

Temps in the 20s again but cloudy, the forecast on the club board was was 4m/s onshore increasing to 6 a later with rain due late in the afternoon.

Lars joined me today and Stuart was with us for a quick sail before returning to Kobe. We headed off to Enoshima tacking out of the bay before one final long tac all the way to Enoshima. Had lunch at the Shonan before the long tack back to Zushi.

Conditions were pretty much perfect all day and when the winds picked up back at Zushi we had 40 mins of blasting up over and back across the bay.

Looks like today was the last day with the sea martin - the Hobie Wave arrives on Thursday!

May 18, 2008

Simon decided at the last moment to come today and brought his friend Thomas Winstanley along for a 'first sail'. Simon joined Stuart on his boat and Thomas crewed on mine. 5m/s winds were forecast for the day, but they never really got above 3m/s and for most of the morning we had very little wind. Our crew began to get bored when the wind dropped off and we decided to maroon them on Nejima, a series of large rocks just off Hayama, while Stuart and I sailed about waiting for the winds to pick up. An hour later the wind returned and I ‘rescued’ the boys and headed to Hayama for lunch. We ate near the shrine overlooking the sea.

Back in the boat after lunch we sailed around Nejima – Thomas was ‘fearlessly’ hiking out, when we hit a wave and he went for an unplanned swim. He had the good sense to keep hold of the jib sheet and was pulled along by the boat laughing all the way. Once he pulled himself on board he immediately settled back into his hiking position and 5 mins later …………….. went over again! Once back onboard we headed for Zushi and let the crew take control of the boats. They steered, trimmed the sails and practiced tacking for an hour before heading for shore at about 15:45.