Japan - Okinawa Prefecture- Okinanawa-Honto - Boat Repair

Ryukyu Islands- Boat Repairs in exotic places

You might have heard the saying about cruising, “working on boat repairs in exotic locations”. We do anticipate breakage and plan for it, we buy back up parts when we can and are always trying to replace hardware and systems before they break. Friends that visit us onboard always shown up with a suitcase full of boat parts that we need at that time. Illimité will be 9 years old soon and she has been a wild child sailing hard and fast across the seas. On our last passage, from Palau to Okinawa, the pounding ocean swells felt like smart cars ramming into our hull, the swells were so large they swallowed our dodger and bimini and made us a waterfall of sea water straight into our companionway. After the second dousing we closed up the companionway making our living quarters into a steamy and hot place for the first half of the passage.

 The day after our arrival we were enjoying the calmness of not moving and being tied up securely to a dock. Sea water, sea air coats the entire inside of our yacht, so I am fastidiously cleaning on the inside.   In our saloon, as I am stroking our stainless-steel pole which is an interior extension of our standing stay, it moved, it moved a lot.  (A stay is part of the standing rigging and is used to support the mast) We soon discovered that both port and starboard interior pole tie rods that support the standing stays have been severed from the deck, which supports our mast!   Once we discovered this, nothing else mattered, we have gone from fearless explorers to motor-boaters wondering how we are going get Illimité fixed in time to keep up with our fast pace of sailing through all of Japan in three months, before the weather window closes for our passage to the Aleutian Islands.   We had many sleepless nights but did all the necessary communications and planning to get Illimité in queue for repairs.

We again were fortunate to have selected Konpira Consulting as an agent, Kirk the owner is a knowledgeable sailor, speaks the language, and has the right connections in the marine industry.   He made prompt arrangements to have our yacht inspected, we had two welders, an interpreter and a Konpira Consultant show up to look at our boat to determine the next steps.   We were extremely worried the welding would have to be done onshore which would require some deep gutting of our boat, to get to the parts (removing galley sink, ceiling, settee etc.).   We anxiously waited for the welders to show.   This is not the kind of job you ask for a quote on, we were desperate, it is either fixed or we are not able to sail.   We were pleased after the inspection, the head welder Kinjo-san said he could do it without removing the hardware from the boat. We were further pleased a week later when the repairs were done, it took two welders about 4 hours and the welding is now better than what the manufacturer had originally done.

A half dozen trips up the mast to fix the boom topping lift. I have the easy job of hoisting Gary up and down.

Broken interior standing stay support- (in the background notice the paintingof Mt Fuji my BFF painted it for Illimité )

Welding repair to starboard & port standing stays