20th - 21st May 2006 - Girne (N.Cyprus) to Mersin (Turkey)
It seems we are getting in more quality sailing this summer than we’ve experienced before.
Last nights sail – 110 miles from Girne back over to Mersin on the south east Turkish coast was a prime example.
We started off at 1500 with a F3 westerly wind under a hot sun – ideal conditions for the Code 0 headsail which soon saw us creaming northward at 7 – 7.5 knots.
As the sun went down at 1900 we had an evening meal in the cockpit and then, with still a solid F3 but one that had by then veered to the south west so it was blowing from directly behind, we dropped the Code 0 and hoisted the spinnaker.
Normally we would not do this at dusk. Our two handed rule is we never fly a spinnaker at night. But somehow we convinced ourselves it was OK (maybe seeing Strella Encore catching up with us using her spinnaker also), and once it had filled and set, we managed to stay abreast of her with a boatspeed between 8 and 9 knots.
Sue went down for a sleep an hour later and in the dark we soon began to overhaul the few other yachts that had left before us – at a super rate of knots. Max speed over the next two and a half hours topped 10.5 knots – but when the wind built to 20 knots and we began rocking and rolling to the point where an inadvertent gybe might occur – it was time to pull it down.
So Sue was awoken and we tried to haul down the spinnaker. Literally. The snuffer / sock which one normally pulls down by attached lines to smother the big sail simply did not function as it should. All we could do was to fall back on racing experience and get it down by hand. That involves so co-ordination, co-operation and strength. In actions that happen almost concurrently, I first first the shackle which holds the sail to the end of the pole. Sue in the meantime had got a grasp on the foot of the sail, and she smokes (let go rapidly) both the sheet (the rope that shapes up the sail) and the halyard (the rope it is hauled up on) and I join her to haul the sail down and in under the shelter of the mainsail - on the leeward side of the boat.
Always seemed an easy task when you’ve more than two crew to do this – but a different experience for us last night. To cut a log story short the sail came down far too quickly and ended up being sucked over into the sea. Dangerous – as there it can fills with water and can try to act like a huge drogue. A twelve ton yacht doing 7 – 8 knots takes some stopping – so the loads on the lines still attached twix sail and boat make them bar tight as they take the strain of towing this sail alongside.
You can also image how much grunt both Sue and I then had to put into getting it back intact. Was not the money of loosing the sail – but rather the principal of getting it back ok – that seemed to matter.
Anyway, working a a small tug of war team getting soaked as we slowly got it back, inch by inch with the boat still roaring along before 25 knots of wind even under only our mainsail. There are times you wished the boat was slower!
Eventually, with aching arms, we stuffed a very wet spinnaker unceremoniously down into the forward head via the overhead deck hatch – where it stayed the rest of the night.
We continued on with a scrap of working jib showing to help balance the main, but even though the winds did eventually ease and finally turn so they cam eon the nose, it came as no surprise to find we were the second of the 80 plus yachts to arrive off Mersin main harbour at 0800 – a good 3 hours before we were due.
Fortunately rally control arrived on their yachts closer to 0930 – enough time for for us to have hoisted the spinnaker at anchor to allow it to dry – and to have a wake up shower before proceeding into the small fishing boat harbour – especially emptied to give us all room to park.
The rally here attracted lots of public attention in Mersin. It’s the 9th largest town in Turkey run by a progressive Mayor and Governor, and as today’s both a Sunday and a local feast day, lots of local people thronged the promenade to see the boats and welcome us (yet again) to Turkey.
That evening the Mayor and Goveror hosted a welcome ‘cocktail’ party in a piazza at their local sports academy. All white and pink marble and fountains – very modern and stylish. The the refreshments both liquid and solid were copious again cancelled any thoughts of needing an evening meal. The night was rounded off with the a local country dancing demonstration team that soon also had everyone (including Mayor and Governor) up trying hard to copy the moves. Another great night out and all freebie as part of the rally.
Monday we take a bus tour to visit Tarsin (town where St Paul came from) and other parts of the region. As the furthest east city we've been to so far asia-side in Turkey so no surprise it has a stronger exotic feel to the place and one sees more headscarfs on the ladies etc.
But oddly those same ladies appear to take more care of the themselves than the those further west, with a majority appearing slimmer and better dressed. Even the shops are classier - real D &G, Ferutti, Pierre Cardin etc.
On Tuesday late we leave here for another longish overnight sail to our last Turkish port at Iskanderun, and then onward to Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Egypt. I wonder if both the boat, along with our livers, can take the strain.
Cheers
JOHN