{"id":2240,"date":"2026-08-07T08:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T08:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/?p=2240"},"modified":"2026-08-16T20:29:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T20:29:00","slug":"260725-transferring-mare-to-arari-ship-builders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/blog\/2026\/08\/07\/260725-transferring-mare-to-arari-ship-builders\/","title":{"rendered":"260725 Transferring MaRe to the Arari Ship Builders"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As mentioned before, OBM could, via a friend, arrange for me that I can keep MaRe at a pier of the Arari Ship Builders. There I will do another part of maintenance and repair.

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I decided to take the direct route because the wind forecast was more than lousy. The weather models differed too much. I have to consider to use the engines all the 100 NM to the Arari bay.

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\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
the crew for Yokohama to Arari just before departure<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Departure was planned for 1000 – 1100. Beside my normal departure preparations I needed to inform friends as well on what needs to be done etc. Two friends, Sudo-san from my AGFA Japan and Copal days, and Seisaki-san who<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

joined AGFA Japan after I left for AGFA HQ in Belgium, were the first time on sail boat. So some explanations were needed.

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With the third one, Taro-san, I sailed 32 years ago for the last time on “sleeper”, the race boat we crewed together. He definitely needed less explanations although there is quite difference between a 12 m race boat and 14 m cruising catamaran and 32 years is a long time.

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OBM stored all the food we brought along and the “omiyage” (a Japanese style gift) we got from the friends.

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Then we were ready to cast off the lines. OBM and I went back to the staff of Cotton Harbor Boat Yard for saying good bye and thanked them again for their great support on the sea trial day. Some of this team came to pier to release lines in order I asked them to do. With sufficient fenders at the bow, I pulled MaRe with the PRT engine away form the pier and then turned out into the wide water area of Yokohama harbor.

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Lines and fenders were quickly stowed away and we heading SW in the vast Tokyo bay staying clear of the traffic separation scheme for big and very big vessel.

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The ECMWF weather model, which is normally the most reliable one, forecasted winds, which should allow us to set the gennaker and sail until the exit of Tokyo bay. However, there was no wind at all. So we used the diesel sails and followed the route toward Tokyo bay’s exit. Everyone got his time on the helm. During the lunch meal OBM prepared, I took over the helm, which means, I used the autopilot and watched only all ships around MaRe. Fortunately there was nothing to be done and I could enjoy my lunch undisturbed.

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Then we got out of the bay and the wind came up. First 60 deg AWA, then 70 deg AWA and we discussed already that with 80 – 90 deg AWA we could use the gennaker. For main sail and genoa the wind was too weak. At 80 deg AWA I got nervous, I wanted to sail. So with Taro-san I prepared the gennaker sheets and the gennaker. When all was ready we had already 90 deg AWA. OBM took the helm and steered MaRe to 150 deg AWA, a <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"\"\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
the Big Blue pulls MaRe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

pretty good  gennaker launch wind angle. Taro-san took position at the STB winch to trim the gennaker roughly, and I hoisted the sock. The Big Blue was flying. Engines off. The only sound was the one of the wake. After trimming it in more details, we made a bit more than half the TWS as STW. Not bad.

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For Taro-san it was a nostalgic feeling after 32 years without sailing. For the other two, it was the first experience being pulled by a sail through the sea and both enjoyed this experience.

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When the wind got too strong for the gennaker, we changed sails to MaRe’s “nightgown”, main sail the reef 2 and the full genoa. With this we went trough the night. Because there was so much traffic from and toward Tokyo Bay, there was not much sleep for me.

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There was also a yacht race in an area we needed to cross and we had strange and dangerous encounter with one boat. Black hull, black carbon sail, no AIS, they tacked just in front of us to go on the priority STB tack and passed us at extremely close distance that I jumped off of the sofa, where I tried to take an off-duty nap, because I saw that race boat so close by.

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It’s so much more relaxed to sail at night far out in the open, blue ocean…

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In the early morning hours we set the Big Blue again and sailed almost to Arari bay before the wind died.

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I have to say that’s the prefect wind condition to go into a new bay and dock at a pier. We called Mori-san, the owner of the Arari Ship Builders, and learned that there will be someone on the pier waiting for us.

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There were actual two people waiting for us. It was Iwabuchi-san and Yamamoto-san, whose name we learned later.

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As I prefer docking at PRT side for a better viewing angle, I turned MaRe around, and approached the floating pier with deep hanging fenders. Pretty quickly MaRe was safely docked at one the floating piers of Arari Ship Builders.

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As always, when I brought a crew safely at the final destination, I suddenly lost all the responsibility tension inside of me and I got terribly tired. However, a lot of things needed to be arranged.

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At the end all were in a bus or train on their way home and I was again, alone on MaRe where I spent the last 5 years of my life. However, I was scheduled to return home to Tokyo already on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As mentioned before, OBM could, via a friend, arrange for me that I can keep MaRe at a pier of the Arari Ship Builders. There I will do another part of maintenance and repair. I decided to take the direct route because the wind forecast was more than lousy. The weather models differed too much. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2026-posts","category-japan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}