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| Shisa dogs on Zamami jima |
For hundreds of years before the 17th century, Okinawa developed a unique culture that was influenced by trade with China and Japan. However, in 1609 the Shimazu clan from Kyushu (Southern Japan) invaded and began a new era of Japanese domination of the Ryukyu Kingdom. By the 1870s, Okinawa was formally annexed and made part of Japan. Because of Okinawa's strategic location, decades later Imperial Japan made the island an important military base in World War II. From April - June 1945, the last battle of the war and the largest land, air and sea battle ever in the history of the world was fought on this 80 mile long island. The Typhoon of Steel, as it is locally known resulted in about 13,000 U.S. casualties and over 300,000 Japanese deaths, mostly civilian. The horror of the Battle of Okinawa directly led to the U.S. decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki...
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| Shuri Castle |
Sixty five years after the war, Okinawa seems to have recovered and is a regular part of Japan again after the prefecture was returned in 1972. However as part of the reversion agreement, the U.S. maintains it's largest overseas military presence on this small island, with over 50,000 U.S service members of all branches of service, along with their families and civilian support staff. The U.S. military presence on Okinawa remains controversial, with strong feelings on both sides of the issue. Local Okinawans remain conflicted between the burden of loud military aircraft flying over their houses and the benefits to the local economy that the American dollar brings...
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Among the 50,000 Americans living in Okinawa, as an idealistic former Navy ship driver- turned school teacher, I found myself at the U.S Air Force's Kadena Marina, sitting aboard an old sailboat with a broken engine. In 2007, I looked at this boat, s/v Intrepid, the Bristol 32 sailboat that I bought on the Internet in 2003 while still in the Navy, and lamented my fate. Of all the things that could go wrong on a boat, serious engine breakdown tops the list of concerns. While motoring into port one day, a small oil circulation pipe, hidden from view during routine inspections broke, causing the engine to sound the low oil pressure alarm while the boat was near the dock with the sails down. In order to approach the dock safely the engine had to be run in this dangerous condition, but this evidently resulted in serious overheating of the engine which now required a complete rebuild. Looking at the oily mess in the bilge and considering the cost and effort and the false sense of security that this engine provided, I was beginning to think that there had to be a better way.
After paying the expense of a diesel engine overhaul and reinstalling it with less than satisfactory results, I consulted with my friend Yoh Aoki, and together we realized that electric propulsion was the answer. Over the course of the next few years, I increasingly became convinced of the benefits of electric power and then made the decision to convert Intrepid to become Okinawa's first electric powered sailboat and one of only two Asmo Marine demonstration models in Japan. Once the conversion was completed in the summer of 2009 and the results proved to be more impressive than hoped, the rest of the story is the subject of this project.
Sailing an electric powered boat in Okinawa
Okinawa is an awesome place for sailing. However, I don't think I've ever read an article or cruising report about Okinawa in any of the popular sailing magazines. Among the locals, sailing seems to be gaining in popularity but in Okinawa most of the sailors still seem to be from mainland Japan, where sailing is more popular. Occasionally foreign cruisers pass through here, but Okinawa seems to be off the beaten cruising path and voyagers seem to have some other reason for sailing this way. You don't usually see many sailboats on the water here, but in a way that is what makes it special. I suppose as a sailing instructor my goal should be to change that, but I must admit I thoroughly enjoy sailing here and sometimes being on the only sailboat people see on the horizon as the sun sets over the beautiful East China Sea.
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| Ginowan Marina |
Now sailing out of Ginowan Marina one afternoon, we depart the well built typhoon safe harbor and Okinawa's largest recreational marina which shelters maybe, a few hundred boats. We encounter five powerboats and one sailboat with their sails down as we pass the breakwater. Intrepid's sails are already up; since we're electric powered we sail as often as possible and usually raise the sails as soon as we clear the dock. I never would have imagined having the confidence to do that before, but now it is second nature. We're lucky today, the wind is on our beam as we leave the marina, but this means it will be right on our nose as we round up and head out the channel. Mike, who is at the helm turns us to windward and points us between the marina marker buoys, green on the right as we head out to sea, just like in the U.S. We're lucky again, since we're so close to shore the wind is from all directions and so it seems that it is still on our beam even though we just turned 30 degrees to starboard.
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| Mike at the helm |
The channel out to sea from Ginowan Marina looks like wide open water, but it is deceiving. As we head out to sea, between us and the Okinawa Convention Center and the crowds of people on Tropical Beach, there is a shallow reef that extends miles out to sea. We have to sail a narrow path, maybe only a hundred yards wide, until we get out past the #3 buoy in order to clear the reefs. Today, as we get some distance from land, the winds are now clearly blowing directly down the channel, on our nose as we head out. Of course this means we have to tack our way out but with our competent crew aboard today, Mike, Pete and Sasha, this just adds to the fun.
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| s/v Intrepid cruising off the coast near Kadena AB |
The key to making progress upwind is to tack effectively without losing momentum. The crew of Intrepid knows what they're doing and quickly pulls the 150% genoa across the bow and cranks in the jib sheet while the helmsman turns the boat just enough to keep us pointed upwind, as he shifts the traveler at the same time. Like a well tuned machine, Intrepid keeps climbing to windward and before we know it we're past the #3 buoy and clear of the last reef. Now we're free to bear off on a nice beam reach along the west coast of Okinawa and head out north towards Cape Zanpa. Hull speed, 6.5 knots... Intrepid is healed over almost 20 degrees and now we're dancing on the waves, joking, laughing and catching up on conversation and having a great time.
As we sail along the coast of Okinawa, our most comfortable point of sail today points us right down the flightline of Kadena Air Base. As we sail towards the land, we can look right down the runway as if we're coming in a for a landing, as well. Often times as we sail this heading, out of nowhere an Air Force F-15 fighter jet will fly within hundreds of feet from the top of our mast. Usually though it's a KC-135 tanker, C-130 cargo plane or a Navy P-3 patrol plane. All of this is unclassified, you can Google it... Speaking of Navy patrol planes, the Navy P-3 is called the Orion. Ah, Orion... that sounds good about now, so we need to get back to port. Orion (pronounced O-ree-ohn) is Okinawa's own locally brewed beer and it's specially made for this humid climate. Of course we never drink and sail, so it's a race back to the marina so we can watch the sunset at the dock along with some ice cold Orion. Pete has to get back early anyway. He's in the Navy and has to report for duty this evening and so he wont be able to stay for our sunset party. We have to make it back by 6pm so the challenge is on to sail back to the marina in time.
In the 3 hours since we've been out sailing, the winds have died just a bit. We're pushing 2, maybe 3 knots now with our full sails up in about 6- 8 knots of wind. We're not concerned about the time though; we're only still trying to sail in light winds because we did manage to get back to the #4 buoy in time. However, we know that if the winds completely died, within about 5 miles from the marina we could still easily push the boat up to hull speed with the electric motor. Since we raised our sails in the marina and started sailing right away, we used practically no battery "juice" on this excursion so far so we'll have plenty of electric power for our docking maneuvers and for motoring all the way through the channel and into the marina if necessary.
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| Docking with clean and quiet propulsion |
Approaching the dock with the sails down under electric power, it seems like we're just gliding through the water. You can barely hear the whir of the electric motor and the swish of the propeller. It sounds sort of like a blender making banana smoothies. It doesn't quite smell the same, but at least there's no diesel fumes. You can definitely talk and give docking instructions to the crew in a soft tone of voice. I think the crew appreciates that, as they know their skipper is calm and in complete control, especially since docking is so much easier with an electric motor. As we approach the slip, we have to pivot and back in, since our shore power cable is too short to go the length to the cockpit if we went in bow first. No problem... as we glide past the slip with the motor in neutral, I turn the wheel hard to starboard to point the bow away from the slip momentarily, then quickly shift the rudder and go full astern to shove the stern into the slip and towards the dock. The motor responds immediately, with full power and without any hesitation. You can feel the boat lunge in the direction she needs to go. Once our momentum is set and we're drifting generally in the direction we need to go, I see that it would help if the bow were a little bit closer to the dock, so I shift the rudder again and go full ahead. Again, without hesitation the bow immediately moves where I want it and we find ourselves comfortably parked parallel and backwards in the dock... made much easier by the high torque and immediate response of the electric motor.
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| Okinawan sunset |
With Intrepid tied up securely in her berth at Ginowan Marina, the little bit of electric power that was used today is being recharged by the "Riku Den" (Japanese for shore power). Until we can figure out why Intrepid's electric propulsion system wont regenerate under sail and until phase II of the electric conversion project is complete and solar panels are added to a bimini that is currently being made, we will just have to take comfort in the fact that a significant amount of Okinawa's power grid is powered by wind generators that are placed all around the island. We'll worry about that later, now it's time to enjoy a relaxing evening and another beautiful Okinawan sunset.
