Today rechristened ENDEAVOR left Yumenoshima yacht harbor's yard for the trip across Tokyo Bay to her new home.
The 8HP Yamaha jumped to life at the first pull of the starter rope. Steady. Throbbing. Anxious to be under way toward a new home.
We exited the Yumenoshima Yacht Harbor at dead slow. That's what signs plastered all over the sea wall said. Dead slow.
Outside the harbor, I pumped the Yamaha up to half speed. We were in a narrow shipping channel and had to pass through a set of flood gates before moving out into the Arakawa river and under the 35-meter-high bridge that carried thousands of cars between Tokyo and Chiba every day. Needless to say, ENDEAVOR's mast came nowhere near the bridge. We passed under, and faced a 15-20 meter per second wind on the nose. The main was bent on and we could raise it at a moment's notice. But the channel is only about half a mile wide and leads straight out into Tokyo Bay for about four miles.
The east wind did not build swells within the confines of the bay, but the waves were 3-4 feet high and the wind whipped their tops to foam. We (My friend Masaya was with me) soon found that ENDEAVOR is a wet boat. Waves don't stop her, but her sharp bow parts them and sends splashing spray over the windward sheer, wetting the superstructure and soaking the person sitting on the windward seat in the cockpit. It only took about five minutes of that wetness to make the decision to get a dodger at the earliest possible moment.
We drove due east into the weather until we passed the last channel marker and Disneyland appeared north of us. I turned ENDEAVOR until Disneyland was at nine o'clock. The wind was now abeam. Time to put up the main. Except I couldn't get ENDEAVOR to lie ahull in a set position to the wind. After several attempts, I made the decision to leave the main lashed to the boom and motor all the way to Funabashi. ENDEAVOR agreed and settled down for the three-hour drive.
The course gradually turned northwest and the wind came from the aft quarter. Rollers would come up under our quarter and ENDEAVOR would swing her stern around and lay over. Her hull shape would cause her to surge windward and I'd have to steer her back toward Funabashi. Still, it wasn't a wet ride any more, just wild and wooly. The markers to the Funabashi shipping channel came up. Green to port, red to starboard. The waves simmered down.
The Funabashi channel is a long one. It took us the better part of a half an hour to get to the last buoy. Head lay Hinode Bridge, and beyond that, Funabashi Boat Park, where ENDEAVOR's berth is D-3. Under the bridge, I cut the outboard to dead slow. We turned into the first line of boats and made our way to the head of the line, but one. ENDEAVOR slipped into her berth like she'd known exactly where to go.
It's been a good day.
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