Sailing On Osaka Wan, 2012

Sailing On Osaka Wan, 2012

While traveling in Japan I arranged to go day sailing on the Pacific near Osaka with an American expatriate. Bill Payne keeps a 27’ foot sloop, ‘Cloud 9’ at Shin Nishinomiya Yacht harbor. Bill picked me up at the Nishinomiya station one Saturday morning in May. Nishi is about 15 minutes by train from Osaka. On a previous trip to Japan I'd seen sailboats in their slips at Nagasaki and other harbors and had quick glimpses of an inviting turquoise sea out the window of bullet trains. To actually get out on Japanese waters in a sailboat was a dream come true. Long before this trip I had contacted Bill by email after I found him on the web. As a retired school teacher and an ex-navy man Bill helps locals and expatriates prepare for the ASA and Japan government tests needed to operate a boat here and he does his training in English. Bill is also active in the local English speaking expatriate sailing community.  

In front of his marina, the Shin Nishinomiya Yacht harbor, is ‘Suntory Mermaid’, a 13m yacht which Japanese yachtsman Kenichi Horie used to sail around the world in 2004-2005 from this very harbor. The aluminum hulled yacht was specially built for the voyage and had sails made with a polyester fiber from recycled plastic bottles. Kenichi’s solo voyage took 8 months and made Kenichi the second person to solo-sail around the world in both directions.

Nishinomiya is located along the eastern Japanese coast about halfway between Osaka and Kobe in a heavily populated part of Japan. These are protected waters and the inner portion of Osaka Wan (Osaka Bay) is sheltered by a large sea wall. Osaka Wan has two outlets, one to the west leads toward the Inland sea, while an opening far to the southwest leads to the open Pacific.

Lang, an Australian and one of Bill's students, met us at the marina. Lang has settled in Japan and opened his own English language school for kids in his town. Lang had bought a sailing dingy he plopped into various Japanese waters. Now he wanted to step up to larger cruising boats.

The three of us quickly got down to the docks and soon had ‘Cloud 9’ underway, but we could not get a clear view of the bay till we picked our way round the typhoon barriers and made it out onto the open waters of Osaka Wan (Osaka Bay). Bill’s marina, like much of the Japanese coast in this area is faced with concrete tsunami and typhoon barriers and breakwaters. His ‘Cloud 9’ is a Splendor, built in Nagoya, Japan about 30 years ago. 

Once underway we soon met another expatriate sailboat, ‘Kapua’, a 25’ Yamaha Mark II captained by an acquaintance of Bill’s. After a quick conversation we left Kapua and set out across the bay for the entrance to Osaka harbor. It was Lang’s first day on a keel boat so he took the tiller. I took some time to look around. This is a major port area traversed by many big ships and fishing boats. Bill said his philosophy, especially in Japan, is to give the local working craft a wide berth, as they have little patience with pleasure boats.

The day was mostly overcast with enough of a breeze, probably about 10 knots or in local terms about 18.5 km/hr. The wind was off the land out of the northwest. It was possible to read the local sailing chart as it was lettered in both Japanese script and English, but the detailed coastal pilot was only lettered in Japanese making it difficult (i.e., impossible ) for me to use.


Once we neared the mouth of the historic Yodogawa River, Bill took the helm and neatly steered us into Osaka’s Hokko Yacht Harbor where we tied up and had lunch below. While we were talking over our onegiri I noticed the the rigging had begun to whistle. Sure enough, just like at home, the north-west proved to be unstable wind. We flew back toward Nishinomiya in a fresh and gusty breeze. I had a great time showing Lang how to flatten out the main and ride the headers upwind. And I am happy to say, we made it without a single tack. Only in one place did we have to dump the main to regain our steerage when a particularly strong gust tried to prevent us from slipping behind a barge. A great fun afternoon of sailing on Osaka Wan.

* * *

 

Other Resources:

http://www.blissjapan.info/BLISS.html   Bill Payne’s web site.

http://www.sail-japan.info/site/   English language forum about sailing in Japan.