Sea Breeze Sailing (B)Log

Date: May 20, 2007
Time: 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Weather: Sunny
Wind: Mild, North/North-westerly 3 - 6 m/s
Waves: 0.5 - 1.0 meters
Skipper: Cliff Bernstein
Crew: Elo Kent, Yuko Saito, Yukinori Ueshima

Great sailing conditions in the morning. The wind was steady for most of the sail, but began to die off as we headed back into port. With the main sail fully set and the genoa, we maintained between 3.5 and 5.5 knots for the sail on primarily close-haul to reach sailing. We ran back in at 3.15 knots.

Lots of leisure fishing charters in the bay who seemed to not want to acknowledge a sailboat and quite often the chain-smoking captains would turn their boats right into our path. Generally avoided like the plague.

The engine worked very well on this calm day. I nonetheless requested an inspection and any overhaul work which might be necessary. The basic fee for the work is 18,000 yen and additional charges will apply for any parts if required. The work should be completed by Friday, May 25th.

Also, I purchased a bucket for running fresh water through the engine after sailng. The engine people who will perform the check on the engine do not think that such fresh water flushing needs to be done every time. I recommend that we do it once a month assuming that we use the boat with some frequency and that we note such cleansing on this blog. The bucket is in the storage area below the port-side cockpit bench.

I also bought spare wing nuts for the traveller, which are in the tackle box below the port-side bench in the main cabin.

Finally, all papers for the boat (insurance, Boat Assistance Network card, etc.) are in a blue plastic folder in the port-side cabinet in the main cabin.

Sea Breeze Sailing (B)Log

DATE: May 13, 2007
TIME: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
WIND: Strong, Northerly, 8-10 m/s
SKIPPER: Cliff Bernstein
CREW: Elo Kent, Peter Wilson, Mika (Wilson)

I had a killer sail this morning. The wind was clocking 8.9 m/s when we left out of port and if felt like it climbed to over 10 m/s during our cruise in the Bay. We were going to go with the main sail and smaller jib, but with two relatively inexperienced and one rusty sailor on board (in addition to me), we stuck with the main. The boat sailed pretty well, but the jib is really needed to get it around on tacks.

Everything seemed to be in good shape. I had trouble getting the spring-loaded transom to come up while we were under sail, but the engine worked fine for the most part. It conked out once as we were coming into port when I tried to put it at its lowest throttle setting, but it picked up again easily. There seemed to be no blockage in the cooling drain at all.

A friend of mine who has had a few outboard power boats recommends getting a bucket in which to put fresh water and running the engine in the bucket to let the fresh water flush out the cooling ducts after each run.