20th - 21st May 2006 - Girne (N.Cyprus) to Mersin (Turkey)
Posted at 12:08 PM, Sunday, May 21, 2006
It seems we are getting in more quality sailing this summer than we’ve experienced on previous summer trips....nice.
Last nights sail – 110 miles from Girne back over to
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 towards the Turkish mainland.
As the sun went down at 1900 we had an evening meal in the cockpit and then, with it 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 big 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 (seeing Strella Encore catching up with us using her spinnaker also just may have been one influence), and once the sail had filled and set, we managed to stay abreast of Strella with a boatspeed between 8 and 9 knots.
Sue went down for a sleep an hour later still with the spinnaker flying - and in the dark we soon began to overhaul the few other yachts that had left Girne before us. We were roaring along at a super rate of knots and had left Strella way behind. 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 together we went to work and tried to haul down the spinnaker. Literally.
The snuffer / sock which one normally pulls down by attached lines to smother the big spinnaker simply chose not to work as they should. All we could do was to fall back on racing experience and consider getting it down hand over hand - but when racing we normally had 8 hands to help do that!
A racing drop involves some co-ordination, co-operation and strength.
In a series of actions that happen almost concurrently, one first releases the shackle which holds the tack of sail to the end of the pole.
Sue in the meantime had the boat under auto pilot, and herself had got a grasp on the foot of the sail as she sat wedged under the main boom.
As I fired the tack shackel, she also fires the cluth holding the spinnaker halliard (smoking) and also the spinnakr sheet (the rope that shapes up the sail) and I rush back from the bow to join her in hauling in / down the huge mass of sailcloth.
FUnny but it always seemed an easy task when you’ve more than two crew to do this. Last night was a tad more difficult.
To cut a log story short the sail came down far quicker than we could gather it all in. Meaning a goodly portion hit the black seas rushing by on our leeward side, and ended up being sucked under as we swepth along.
When it happened my bottom started clenching as this is indeed dangerous. Such a huge sail is hard enough to pull in when full of air, impossible when full of water. A nine ton yacht doing 8 knots takes some stopping, so the loads on the few lines we held would soar up as the sail filled and began to work like a sea anchor - unless we reacted quickly.
We did.
We fired off the hallianrd from the top of the sail so it could not ballon up to catch water, and held on together to the single sheet line plus the sailcloth we'd alreay gathered and sat on.
You can also image how much grunt both Sue and I then had to put into getting the reast of sail back on board. Was not the money of loosing the sail – but rather the principal of getting it back ok – that seemed to matter at the time.
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 came round and onto 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
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
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
Cheers
JOHN