Covid does not stop all
A new “Yasasin” (Powerboat with 800hp) came to cheer up our great Ardic in this sad covid long period, not allowing our ORMA to be lauched this year.
Check it out
This 1st weekend of November was very special.
For the very first time, we have managed to gather my 3 brothers Jean-Guillem, Hugues, Sebastien and myself.
Ardic was waiting for that experience and enjoyed every minute of this great sailing despite the very light wind we had in the Bosphorus on Saturday. A wonderful opportunity as as traffic for all ships sailing from/to the Black Sea and the Marmara sea was banned that day for a race to take place.
Not often Senol is not there with us, but for sure he enjoyed spending time with his family that weekend.
The crew: Ardic, the 4 brothers, and lucky us, Sinem and Izzet joined us.
Great fun to be sailing with a bit of wind on Sunday, with rather high speed but quite not enough as we were hoping to clock 30 knots.
Thanks to Sinem for taking the time to shoot all she could with her phone. (see the video below)
1 reef and J1 to clock 28 knots at the top, then not so successful under full mainsail and J1 with a max speed of 22knots in a slightly lighter breeze.
Few minutes with the genaker in light air with the purpose of drying the sail.
Mid-afternoon, back in the harbor, we took down the sails as to be ready to lift up the boat on land mid-november.
Great job from all, with some minor damages though, like the port foïl on a drop down, and a J2 rolling out unexpectedly, thank God, with no damage to follow.
Definitely having a problem with the tack of the genaker hook, we MUST fix that for once and for all.
The season is over, see you next year in April for more fun on board Yasasin.
Click here for the Video of the weekend
Saturday (August 24th)
– crew: Ardic, Sinem, Izzet, Batuhan, Senol, X
– weather: light in the morning, increasing NNE through out the day coming by the western area of our harbour
As we dock out, we find no wind or almost. Let’s straighten the rigg which seems more loose than usual.
A 45min work involving everyone (as to make it quick) while we are heading West, to meet the wind as quick as possible.
As soon as ready we hoist the mainsail, then roll out the J1 in a light SW wind totally not expected.
With a bearing of 280 we can see some wind ahead of us, rather strong and from N. As we approach, I decide to roll the J1 and wait to evaluate how strong the breeze will be. In less than 1min, the wind changes then from SW to NNE and right away, we can accelerate to 12-15knots with the mainsail only. To be on the safe side, we roll out our J3, not knowing how strong the puffs will be. Boat speed immediately touching 25knts with more wind to come, we decide to take reef 1.
Great speed but for sure too much for coming back against the wind.
Relaying each other, Ardic and Sinem are enjoying helming. We finally tack as we are getting too close to shallow waters. We are about 35 to 40 miles west of the Bosphorus but our goal is now to reach those islands and back to western istanbul marina on time to being ready for the organized at 6pm. We need to have average 23knots the next 3 hours. Can we make it?
Right after the tack, we take down the mainsail to reef 2 and can now “fly”. The wind is up and down but the speed remains above 24knots all the time. Nice feeling.
click here for media of the day
Sunday (August 25th)
– crew: Ardic, Sinem, Izzet, Batuhan, Levent, Senol.
Bike, Ardic’s sister, a couple and their 5yrs old son are supposed to join later at sea.
Like yesterday, the wind is very light, and we have a choice to make: either try West again or East right away to welcome Bike and her friends coming on a motorboat.
We struggle the first 1,5 hours to sail the 20miles towards the “meeting point”. We even need to use the engine as the breeze dies or turns 360deg several times.
Finally we can see 2 figures at the speedometer as the wind increases. Our guests are on board and we can have more and more fun. One reef in the mainsail is safer as to not take too much risks. The fun is there and we sail around and around, racing ferries and cargoships.
The record of the day is, so far, the record of the year as we manage a 29,6knots after our guests left Yasasin, under J3 and 1 reef in the main. So nice and enjoyable
A windy weekend expected with increasing wind throughout the day, both Saturday and Sunday
For the first time, Giang is joining us, flying from Denmark. After 3 years hearing about this boat, she finally gets a chance to see and feel what is happening on this famous Yasasin’s project. Thank you Ardic for making it happen.
Short crew again that weekend = lots of “sport”
Saturday, August 10th
– Meeting time 10am at the hotel to taxi to the harbour
– crew: Ardic, Izzet, Senol, Sinem, Giang and X
As you can imagine, we are ready to fight hard to hoist, trim, steer, maneuver and so on.
Lucky us the wind is decent, and we don’t have to worry too much.
We start with 2 reefs in the mainsail and J3. A slight hesitation occurred to begin with 3 reefs but I figured it would be too cautious.
Quickly the wind decreases and we go for reef 1 and J1.
Nice fun with rather high speed, toping 24-26knots and above, “racing” some cargo-ships around, or/and slaloming between some of those ships anchored. Excellent exercise, for sure. Tacking, Jybing, adjusting laylines, choosing proper angles to keep clear …. Great fun. Ardic is concentrated at the helm, smiling and shouting when above 25knots.
Giang enjoys every minute, is not sick, finds her way on the boat and is really eager to work hard, pulling the ropes, turning the winch-handles when ever needed. She has good time, for sure. And with Sinem, they make a great team together both talking and working hard.
– Sunday, August 11th
– Same meeting time at the Marmara hotel (10am)
– crew: the same as yesterday minus Sinem ( 😦 ) plus 2 of Ardic’s friends coming for enjoying the weather, the speed, the clean air, the company.
Again, 2 reefs in the mainsail and J3. Far enough for toping 28,6knots, record of the weekend held by Ardic.
The wind is not regular so we can take one reef off.
We decide to check out an island Ardic would like to do business on.
As we approach the area, the wind picks up and we really start having fun. Few tacks through the narrow straight dealing both with the shallow water and the boats all over the place and we can accelerate easing off the sheets a little, racing some ferries for the pleasure of their passengers waving, shooting us with their cameras.
For the first time, Loïc (my son) is joining a training weekend.
Not completely new on board as he was taking part of the delivery back in 2014 from Malta to Didim. A pleasure to having him with us.
Sunshine, light breeze, then wind allowing us to have our usual fun. That was great.
Saturday, a short crew with Ardic, Senol, Sinem, Loïc and myself
Yes, hard work for all, but smile and joy the whole day, followed by a night-walk in Istanbul with a visit of the museum of illusion and a nice dinner (Sinem, Loic and myself)
Sunday
crew: Ardic, Senol, Sinem, Batuhan, Loïc and X
Today we have the visit of one of Ardic’s friend, Mario from Ecuador, and his lady, Angela from Colombia
Again, the weather conditions are perfect and everyone can enjoy the ride at its full.
Thanks for the shots taken that day (videos and photos)
(photos & videos coming soon or later)
Quiet sailing weekend on Yasasin as the weather was forecasting some light rain and breeze.
Saturday 13
With our “short” crew we have lots of work but everything went fine until a tack where the J1 leech caught the leeward 2 spinlocks on the mast and broke them both. So strange how it could happen considering their high position. Strong sail yes, but damaged slightly.
We top almost 19knots but it ismore like 14 to 15knts in average
Sunday 14
Lot more wind that day so we do not need the J1 (lucky because of the little damage)
Not much to talk about. Everything went fine.
A nice weekend. Thank you all
photos-videos to follow shortly
After a long winter and a full weekend to repair/calibrate the electronic (thanks to Laurent), we finally can enjoy the pleasure to sail at high speed.
Saturday, despite a light wind prediction of the weather forecast, we really can feel the great potential of the boat, with its beautiful mainsail hoisted with no reef.
Fabulous sensations at 25knots in a perfect flat sea.
We have a little minus though, the helm is not smooth and we need to be very concentrated (and strong) to not let us taken by a hard point coming now and then at high speed. We MUST find out what the problem is ASAP.
Very short crew that day, but enough to enjoy every minute.
Ardic, Senol, Izzet, Levent (a new crew) and myself.
Better not forget the 3 scary “stop&Go” occurring at 25knots where the leeward hull AND the bow went way under water surface due to a late reaction bot at the mainsheet and the J1 sheet combine to a no-reaction at the helm. WOW. Bad luck no camera was running ;).
The J1 was replaced by the smaller J3 after the first alert and eventhough, we had 2 more …
The wind picked up in a bay West of our marina forcing us to take a reef (which became 2)
Sunday, the weather forecast announced a very light breeze and so it was from the morning to 2pm where we got a nice NNE of 10-12knots.
Same people as the day before plus Izzet’s gf until Ardic’s sister, Bike, and 2 of their friends joined, sailed by Bike’s motor boat.
A very nice ride with the maxi-genaker topping 20 to 21knots in very safe conditions.
A wonderful sailing weekend, except that we could not trust the B&G auto pilot which seemed to have worked pretty well the previous weekend.
Let’s see what the 15th&16th will have to offer.
Here are some pictures of the weekend
Check out the videos at the bottom
1) Saturday
2) Sunday
Fantatisk weather that weekend.
Quite short crew but we still can top up 25knots and more
Here are some views of the weekend
1st of June: click here
Together with Laurent, our “witch” (wizard), this weekend is reserved for setting up and calibrating all electronic which had suffered bad treatment the past few seasons.
Lucky, the wind was very light and he (wizard) could “fly” some hours on top of the mast, enjoying the view.
The sailing itself was ….. not much fun for the crew as we deployed the J1 once for a very short period, unable to find wind enough.
Instead, we could practice flying the drone and take some few shots. Not top quality but unusual angles of Yasasin we had never seen before.
The crew:
Ardic
James – Ardic’s British fellow (on Sunday)
Sena (on Sunday)
Laurent
Izzet
Senol
Levent (new on board)
Xavier
Kerem (on Sunday)
Saturday
Sunday
Saturday June 2th wind: up to 20-22knots ENE – NE
crew: Senol, Izzet, Kerem, Ali, X (+ taxi driver)
the expected wind does not come as the weather forecast predicted.
Very happy about that so we can hoist both genakers and look at them, check the drum-system and roll them properly.
Sunday June 3rd wind: 10-12knots NE – ENE – E
crew: Senol, Izzet, Kerem, Batuhan, Cem, X, Özlem and her son Ruzgar 5yrs old (“wind” in Turkish)
The weather is mild and we cannot reach high speed even with full sails. We cannot go so far then, due to the time agreed with our driver, so we only manage a 40miles trip that day.
Still we have some good sailing, where Izzet non-stop keeps the helm with no rest.
That day, we have the visit of Ozlem and her son Ruzgar (5 years old). Second time for his mother, he needs long time to feel confident and let his mum away. With patience and convincing expressions, we manage to get him to play with all (see videos and pics). The way back to town will see a very tired boy falling asleep almost right away
Photos taken Saturday
Video 1 (fast sailing): https://youtu.be/hCac3stMUsc
Video 2 (fast sailing): https://youtu.be/7ylvLyinBQ4
Video 3 (fast sailing): https://youtu.be/EEFuF0YfbVo
Photos taken Sunday
Photos from our new young sailor Ruzgar, taken sunday – slideshow
Some videos of Ruzgar’s day
Video 1: at the helm
Video 2: On the fordeck
Video 3: Single hand sailor?
Video 4: Winch handling practice
Video 5: Single hand hard work
