Former owner joins crew

Scarlette sails under new command on maiden voyage

Finally got to sail Scarlette.

E-mailed "Tokyo Tony" Sunday night after getting the boat in the water Sunday morning to see if he wanted to go sailing on Scarlette's maiden voyage under a new command.

We got started at about 10 a.m. and finished about 1 p.m. sailing off the coast of Chatan, Okinawa, on the South China Sea.

To say it was awesome is an understatement especially after spending the whole summer working on Scarlette to get her presentable and sea worthy.

Tokyo Tony is always willing to climb aboard and is making a damn fine crew member...especially since he remembers to bring his camera!

More pictures are available on http://www.scarletteboat.com/ under the voyages section.

Scarlette Launches

10, 9, 8, 7....

Scarlette launched today after a false start yesterday that left her trailer, Rhet, in limping condition.

Gotta run...gotta boat to sail.

New Engine

I bought a new engine today. It cost !#$%!#$. The old engine which I took to the Yamaha Marine dealer reaped an estimate to fix of nearly $900.

Basically, no way.

So a new Yahama 5 horsepower engine will be the power plant for Scarlette.

I'll shoot a picture of it then add it to an edited version of this page later.

A Japanese holiday prevented me from doing any work or preparations for Saturday's launch at high tide.

Kai will be with me for the launch if all goes as planned.

Where oh where is the Yamaha dealer

Boating in a foreign country is hard but even harder is finding the right place to provide the parts and stuff you need.

Basically the conversation starts out like this...

"uuhh...boat....uhh...engine...uhh...can I draw you a picture."

It took me three hours to find the Yamaha Marine engine shop in Naha. Then it took another call to my wife to translate what I needed once there.

Ahhh. The boating life.

Engine dilemma III

Today met Mark who agreed to take a look at my 5 horsepower Tohatsu engine. It started up last Thursday but refused to "pee" any water out of the bucket I attached to the bottom. It's a water cooled engine so it sucks water from the bottom and "pees" it out the top. Kind of essential that it does this or the engine will overheat or burn up.

Mark normally works on power boat engine but said he'd give this outboard a look either way.

We pulled the propeller out of the shaft and one of the fins on the spinning wheel that helps suck the water in was broken. Mark said the shaft was also not spinning as good. As we poked and prodded the drive shaft, Mark got to the point where he thought he'd do more harm than good and recommended that I take the engine to a dealer to get it looked at by someone who normally does outboard engines.

Drove around Naha for about two hours and still couldn't find the place.

Was able to replace the bilge pump after several hours of electrical wire trouble shooting. It's looking more and more like, I'm going to have to rewire the innards of Scarlette because of a failed switch. More on that later.

Scrub a dub dub

Gave Scarlette coat #1 of the Hawaiian Two-Step Process again. Weather has been crappy here for the last several days, so can't really start something without having to stop a bazillion times.

Was also able to get a hold of Mark to see if he can take a look at the engine. Icky was too busy with a bigger repair. Mark said he'd take a look if he was feeling better.

Ok..There I was...

Had to change out the lower standing rigging. That the wires on the side that helps hold the mast steady. The lower rigging isn't as high as the upper rigging. Duh...

Anyway, to put this lower rigging on I had to loosen the wire that helps hold the mast, then climb up the ladder and remove and replace the wire then tighten the wire back up. And it had to be done to both sides.

Thanks to Delane I was able to quickly add this part without further delay of the launch because of the mail.

I tied off the ladder to the mast with bungee cords then climbed up this ladder. Just kept remembering not to look down.

What's in a name?

Finished painting on the boat's name on the port side. Below is a picture of how the job progressed.

I used a stencil and then I a painted over the whole logo to fill in the stencil slots and to make the whole thing look more uniform. It's not the best paintjob in the world. Paint kept drying out on me before I could get it from the can to the boat.

Air dry

OK, so I was at the point where I was kind of bored and decided I was at the point where I could actually check to see what the sails looked like and in what condition they were in. So I pulled up the mainsail and here's what I saw. (See photo at left)

The sail was pretty crisp. Supposedly if it's not it means that the sail is older and more worn. So from my wide ranging experience, I'm saying this sail was in pretty good shape.

I like the small window above the boom. I can see why this might be necessary. What I'm not real sure of is the "window" in the middle of the sail.

Not sure about that one.

But as long as it works when I need it and remains fairly clean. I'm good.

Next I got a real surprise...

...initially I thought this was the jib sail. I was a little miffed as I didn't want to have to buy a regular sized jib sail probably at a cost of "another" thousand dollars.

I'm not sure what this sail is really for. I'll have to ask Delane.

I did find the Jib sail. It's the right size so now I've got an extra sail for "really windy conditions?"