TSPS Sail Class Goes Dinghy Sailing

Education Activities, Events, News, , , , ,

TSPS member Jose Puppim de Oliveira invited current TSPS Sail Class members to the Marine Box 100 Open House Day in Zushi on May 13 from 10:00 to 15:00. Two members of the sail class, Janice Rimmell and Graham Bell, took up the offer along with instructor Randy Erskine. We arrived in Zushi and met up on the beach and were duly joined there by Jose. A short time later we were joined by David Rasmussen and friends.

It was an open-house day, so the club was looking for members. We took ‘The Grand Tour’ and a got a full explanation about membership, fees, etc. We then sailed in a Sea Lark at midday, but could only use the boat for one hour as there were quite a few people wanting to sail. This was Janice’s first time in a boat and I think she grinned from ear to ear all day. Prior to going sailing we had lunch, smoked chicken burgers, on the roof of the club. Also available were curry and other assorted snacks along with hot and cold drinks.

After sailing the Sea Lark, Jose offered us the use of his Laser, an offer we readily accepted. Randy took Janice out for her first experience in a boat nearly big enough for two and with a very low boom. We were joined by Jose’s nine-year-old son Fernando for his first sailing experience. This was a lesson in how to get wet without trying. We returned to the beach where Graham and Jose then went out for a sail. The day finished up with washing all the equipment down and stowing the boat, sails and mast away. After sailing had finished the cold beer machine was a welcoming sight. The weather was perfect for an introduction to sailing, sunny with blue skies and a nice breeze. Marine Box 100 is very good, with changing rooms, good showers and toilet facilities. The club was very happy to lend us two buoyancy aids. Normally there is no food available, but there are plenty of restaurants nearby.

A big thank you to Jose for the invitation.

Randy Erskine

Kirk Patterson Departs Canada for Japan

News

In a post about two months ago, we mentioned Victoria, BC resident and TSPS member Kirk Patterson was about to embark on a sailing voyage from Victoria to Hakodate, Hokkaido via Hawaii. Well for Kirk, departure day has arrived. Read about his cruising plans in this Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper article. 

The Scale Of The Universe

News

If you’re ever aboard a boat out on a large body of water, and you’re standing at the rail or sitting in the cockpit gazing contentedly at a distant horizon or the twinkling stars above and are overrun by an unexpected and surprisingly uncomfortable sense of smallness and insignificance, keep in mind what you see when you move the slider at the bottom of this visualization to the left. It’ll remind you that you are in fact big, enormously big and therefore significant. If, on the other hand, you would like to validate those emotions and appreciate just how tiny, so very very tiny you really truly are, remember what you see when you move the slider to the right.

Message In A Bottle

News

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] year has passed since I broke my nose
I should have known that right from the chart
Only rope can keep me together…

Given the short-term dearth of boating and/or social activity in the squadron, we submit for your weekend viewing pleasure “The Synchronicity Concert.” The Police, live in Atlanta, Georgia. Recorded November 2 & 3, 1983. Runtime: 01h 15m 07s. Good music to clean up to if you’re house-bound. Enjoy.

At Anchor: Looking for Cherry Blossoms

News, , , , , , , ,

On April 7, four boats- Akdenizli, Andiamo, Bifrost, and Diva- met up off the Chiba coast for what had been promised to be a great two hours of cherry blossom viewing from the sea. Bifrost was the first to arrive and drop the anchor, followed by Andiamo, and Akdenizli. Diva, having powered south about ten miles to get some fishing in, arrived a little later and was the third boat in the raft. Akdenizli, being the smaller boat tied up last. After finishing tying the boats together in somewhat windy and wavy conditions, some of the twenty-one crew began to notice there was not a single cherry tree in sight. “Yes, I realize that,” said a skipper, “We’ve been misinformed.” A third person commented they’d seen cherry blossoms further down the coast. And so the question became where the correct spot to anchor was. We all came to the conclusion that it was elsewhere. The absence of blossoms was soon forgotten as crew brought out the food and beverages and the conversations turned to boats and boating, fish and fishing, sandwiches and vegetable sticks. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, with brief gusts and a small rolling swell coming through. At just past two the wind kicked up and the raft quickly broke into its four component parts that were each quickly flying off in all directions, two boats under power and two under sail all bound for their homeport.

Warren Fraser

[wooslider animation=”fade” slideshow_speed=”6.0″ keyboard_nav=”true” slider_type=”attachments” limit=”20″]

TSPS member Warren Fraser explains his bucket.

The weather this season in southern Kanagawa has been wildly unpredictable- warm and sunny one day, then cold, wet, and miserable the next, followed by sun, then rain, then wind. Spring winds from the south have been ferocious, rolling through at speeds of up to 55 knots (27 meters per second) making sailing, well, improbable. And so I, we, my fellow Tokyo area sailors, wait for fairer winds.

This past winter I spent a lot of time working on Voyager doing mostly big little things– installing ratlines to climb the shrouds; making, then installing new three-strand lifelines to replace standard wire ones; mounting bronze Murray winches on the mast, and scores of other odd jobs. It got to the point when everything that could be done in a few hours got done, and all the items on ‘The Quick Jobs List’ were checked off. What was I going to do with the remaining ‘few hour’ bits of free time I had available?

One rainy afternoon while leafing through a book on gaff-rigged cutters I noticed a nicely-aged canvas bucket in a photo of a boat’s cockpit. The sun and the salt water, and perhaps the years, had turned it gray. The canvas was crumpled to one side but the brim remained round and firm, with the fibers of the three-strand line standing proud under the canvas. It looked quite dignified and then it occurred to me a bucket would make the perfect little project. So I bought a couple meters of #8 canvas at Yuzawaya in Kamata and began planning my work flow. I came across a fairly detailed description in Lin and Larry Pardey’s book ‘The Cost Conscious Cruiser‘ and listed out the parts I’d need. I made the decision early on to do it all by hand, which for me was the beginning of the adventure. I’d never sewn anything before. Ever.

Having gathered up the materials, I began by making an 8” circle, or grommet, of 3/8” three-strand rope. Then using a sailmaker’s palm (a thimble worn on the palm of the hand), I sewed the canvas to create a 20” tube and then folded it over on itself to get double-sided bucket walls. I slipped the grommet up in between the doubled walls to create the rim. Next was the doubled bottom made of two 9” canvas circles sewn together 3/4 of an inch from the edge I’d selvaged to stop any fraying. The bottom was sewn on with some difficulty as I had to get it to fit the tube walls without too much puckering. That completed, I turned it all inside out and had the beginnings of the bucket. To keep the three-strand brim in place between the walls, I sewed all the way around the underside of the brim using a sewing awl. Next came small grommets sewn under the bucket rim to form holes through which I spliced some rope to form the handle. I added the BCC sail mark by rubber cementing on letter cut-outs I‘d made from a length of leather. Finally, I spliced on 12’ of rope to form the line the bucket is hung from when scooping water, adding Matthew Walker knots every 12” to help with grip under load. In the end, my ‘few hours’ project took well over 15 hours to complete. And to be honest, it’s the best boat bucket ever built. It better be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Devlin Sets Sail For Australia

News, , , ,

TSPS sailor David Devlin set off from Shimoda port aboard Yarramundi, his Jeaunneau 34 on March 25 bound for Sydney, Australia, a voyage that we understand may take up to a year to complete. His course south will begin with stops in Shikinejima and Hachijojima in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, before setting off for Ogasawara in the Bonin island chain, some 480 nautical miles south-south east of Shimoda. We’re not sure in which direction David will point the bow from there, but he’ll likely be stopping at some of the islands that dot the Philippine Sea and other areas because in addition to running his business and sailing, David is also an avid underwater photographer. We’re pretty sure he won’t pass up on opportunities to dive in places like Palau, Truk, or Yap. Along the way, a few fortunate friends will accompany David aboard Yarramundi on various legs of this 6,000 nautical mile voyage to Sydney. Lucky them!

We’ll keep you posted as more specific information about David’s trip comes to us. If you’d like to follow his voyage south you can read about it on his Sailblog, ‘Towards Sydney’.

You can see David, Yarramundi and other TSPS boats underway in this video.

On behalf of everyone at TSPS, we wish David a very pleasant  and safe voyage on his way toward Sydney.

Saito Wins Uemura Naomi Award

News

We’ve been terribly remiss in not getting this wonderful news on the site sooner. Our most distinguished member, Minoru Saito, at the age of 77, has been awarded Japan’s most prestigious adventurer’s award. From a February 16, 2012 press release by the Saito Challenge 8 committee:

Saito Wins Uemura Naomi Award As Nation’s Top Adventurer in 2011

TOKYO – Japanese single-handed sailor Minoru Saito, 78, has been named recipient of the Naomi Uemura Adventure Award for 2011, out of a field of 207 Japanese nominees for the vaunted annual award in honor of the world-renown Japanese alpinist.

The award, which includes a 1 million yen cash prize, was announced at a press conference today at Meiji University in Tokyo. Saito was cited for successfully completing his eighth solo circumnavigation in 2011 at age 77, as well as for his nearly 40-year sailing career that includes the non-stop solo circumnavigation he completed in 2005 at age 71, a Guinness Book world record.

The award is given annually by the Naomi Uemura Foundation and the city of Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture, the birthplace of Uemura, who in the 1970s became a household name to a nation often transfixed by his dramatic exploits focused on mountain climbing and solo polar ice treks. In 1984 Uemura tragically disappeared in an attempt to become the first person to make a solo mid-winter ascent of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley. His body was never recovered.

An all-volunteer international group comprising over 200 persons in Japan and seven other countries supported Saito on his 3-year, 45,000-km eighth solo circumnavigation.

Hunter Brumfield, co-chair of the organization, thanked the Uemura Naomi Foundation and the City of Toyooka, saying that “this is a truly great honor and one that Saito-san recognizes is not just wonderful encouragement for himself, but for any person, of any age, who sails or may have dreams of sailing.”

Minoru Saito fields questions from the media

We on the Bridge of the Tokyo Sail & Power Squadron are very proud to have Saito-san as a member of our organization and on behalf of our membership, congratulate him and his supporters on winning the very prestigious Uemura Naomi Award.

[break]

Kirk Patterson To Sail Vancouver To Japan

News

TSPS Canadian West-Coast representative Kirk Patterson will depart for Hawaii from Vancouver, B.C. in late April aboard Silk Purse, a 40-foot, cutter-rigged steel and aluminum boat on the first leg of his extended cruise to and then around Japan. Here is what he has to say about it:

“I plan (hope?) to  arrive in Hawaii in late May and to Hakodate in late June or early  July. I will do a clockwise circumnavigation of Hokkaido and then a  counter-clockwise circumnavigation of the rest of Japan getting to  Tokyo in spring 2013, all going according to plan.

“Since I left Japan I have been sailing in B.C., which is great. Alaska, in fact, is even better. In the past 2 years, I did two trips to Alaska, two circumnavigations of Vancouver Island, and cruised in the Queen Charlottes (Haida Gwaii)—not bad for somebody who only started sailing 3.5 years ago. But I’m excited to experience sailing in Japan and especially to circumnavigate Japan.

“If TSPS members want to monitor my progress, they can check my  regular (daily?) position postings on winlink. Go to www.winlink.org/userpositions …. at the bottom of the map on that page, input my callsign —  ve0krp [0=zero]. My most recent and previous postings will show up  as little blue/green icons… if one clicks on an icon, one can see a brief message (max. 80 characters) from me (i.e., bobbing up and down with no wind… or HELP!!… or ???.)

“When I have an Internet connection, I will post reports and photos on Facebook.”

Cheers,

Kirk

Boats in the Fleet photos: Silk Purse

 

 

 

 

Music To Work A Line To

News

Perhaps this will become a regular feature on the website- great music to sail to, to dance to, or to tilt back the rum to… Being Canadian, I know a few singer songwriters who have written classics- Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Geddy Lee, Stompin’ Tom Connors, whose immortal tunes ‘The Hockey Song‘ and ‘The Man in The Moon (Is A Newfie)‘ sounds as fresh today as they did when they were released in the ’60s.

So here are four tracks from the Maritimes legend Stan Rogers whose songs have inspired people like me to to go down to the sea to dream and one day cross it.

Stan Rogers

Let us know your favorite songs for boating and sailing and we’ll track them down on the Internet and post them here.