Flicka Tanomoshi

Hull 104 came to her present owners by way of a Japanese brokerage. As Neri, lying at Aio in Yamaguchi Prefecture with a Yamaha 9.9 longshaft on her stern, she was bought through Fumio Ohsuka's yard at Beppu, and on 11 January 2006 Takashi Nishiyama single-handed her the fifty-odd miles down to Beppu in a hard frost, logging 5.3 knots at eighty percent throttle and 5.7 to 5.8 knots flat out. She was refitted there and re-christened Tanomoshi by Yuichiro and Naomi Tsuruta - the word means dependable, reliable, trustworthy - with a red insignia of their own design.

Nishiyama then delivered her some 500 nautical miles from Kyushu to Okinawa, a voyage he told in Flicka Friends #39 (Summer 2006). Gales pinned him in Aburatsu for two days and three nights, and the Autohelm and its Fuso backup, both fitted at Beppu, failed in turn, so that much of the trip was steered by hand. What Nishiyama called possibly the longest leg of the delivery ran 170 nautical miles non-stop from Ohdomari to Naze on Amami Oshima, single-handed through a night of rolling swell and against the Kuroshio. Yuichiro joined her at Yoron on 16 February for the hop across to Tokuchi on Okinawa; Nishiyama sailed the final leg alone into Ginowan Marina, her new home port, where the Tsurutas and a neighbouring boat came out to meet her.

Tanomoshi appears to be a PSC kit boat ("Owner Completion Boat"). Not many other Flickas have the arrangement like hers below decks.

Aio to Okinawa, Japan. The story is in Flicka Friends:  Flicka Friends issue (PDF)  (Pages 12 - 26)