July 27-29 – 2022
Delivery Yasasin Turgutreis – Istanbul
Crew:
Xavier (skipper), Tugce, David, Senol
lexicon
BS: boat speed
SOG Speed over the ground
TWS: true wind speed. TWD: true wind direction
CC: compas course
R1 or R2 or R3: reef1 or reef2 …
J1: solent J3: staysail
ORC: smallest jib (before the stormjib)
Wednesday the 27th
Plan to leave at 5am the hotel gave us just time to make it with 10min margin, leaving the dock at
6.50am
Already troubled by the starboard foil, we need to do some work on it (sewing).
The wind being rather light and exactly in the nose, it is fine to keep the engine ON for sometimes
Finally we can sail:
Here comes a part of the “logbook”. A little boring to go through, but giving an idea of all the maneuvers we had to deal with.
7.30: hoisting mainsail (1 reef)
7.50: deploy solent – Motor OFF – BS: 12 to 14 kts, TWS: 16kts
Quickly we reach the coast and have to tack
9am: Tack near by Didim
9.30: tack at “Pharmakonisi” Greek island
10am: TWS = 10-16kts On port tack: heading: 27deg
11am tacking to starboard
11.45 Solent < – > J3
13.45 R1 < – > R2 . the wind is unstable and picking up
14.05 Tacking to port heading to W Samos
14.55 Tacking to Stb (TWS up to 32knts in the straight near by the island) R2+J3
15.05 “ port (clearing Samos)
15.15 R2 < – > R1 (the wind droppes gently)
15.45 Dodo (16.45) (I finally can rest 30min)
After a nice straight ride with 17 kts average, the wind dies suddenly
17.10 Motor ON – 17.15 Motor Off – 17.30 Motor ON
TWS 3kts TWD N
17.50 TWS 16-19 TWD NNE – J1 + R1
18.00 TWS 24 J1 <-> J3
18.10 Wind dead Motor ON
Hard to figure out what course to take:
Between Cesme and Kios or West of Kios
19.00 Dinner. The weather gets cold, the wind is up and down
Senol finds himself in a deep sleep few minutes.
19.50 Motor OFF
J3 + R1, BS=11kts
Crossing fingers for the wind to hold.
Strange to not have seen more than 4 sailing boats the whole day.
As we are far from land, the 4G connection is not working 100%
Of course, the wind is giving us troubles with ups and downs.
Engine ON&OFF many times, is what we have but at least we are making progress in the right direction.
The choice is made to sail through the passage between Kios and Cesme. We have Northerly wind and it is under sails that we play in this rather narrow straight in a totally dark night.
Senol is not very comfortable with our coming close to land to tack.
After being through, we can sail straight to our next WP, 40miles away.
Early morning, we can see the last Greek island before the Dardanelles.
We are on starboard tack, heading NNW, when the wind begins to pick up slightly.
At 8am, we are under J3 and R2, but the wind continues to climb up, so we go for R3, and later on, take down (roll) the J3. TWS: 35-42knots. We bare away to WSW (downwind) to be able to roll properly J3 which gives some bad signs in the middle battens. The leech is delaminating slowly. Really hard work for David and Senol, thanks to their efforts.
We are on starboard-tack, unable to tack towards the Dardanelles (we will use the engine later)
After 2 hours, TWS is way above 35kts with a nasty chopy sea forcing us to slowdown a lot.
We must use the engine to talk (not to loose more ground again by jybing).
TWS 40+ , the sea is growing, the boat hits with a scary violent chocks the waves so steep and sharp. The Dardanelles are straight in front at about 15miles (CC 70) and the TWD 10-25.
It is unlikely that we will have better conditions for a while. Our BS? 4 to 5 kts as we hit the waves so hard.
To add to our hard navigation, the traffic is increasing more and more as we get closer to the straight. Because of the current against (up to 4kts) , the plan is to stay as North as possible, both to avoid the nasty sea, the current, and the traffic.
As soon as the sea calms down a little, we prepare the ORC (stormjib) to get a little more speed. The shocks remain hard. I wonder how boats can stand so much. We are as slow as possible, and after a serie of waves, our BS goes often down to 1knts. My God, how long is this gonna take?
At 2pm, we are finally in the Dardanelles. The wind is still very very strong and turning East, but the sea is fine so we can accelerate. We decide to sail. That will be about 20 to 25miles beating the wind, crossing the separation-traffic zone several times, slaloming with the traffic. Not easy task to not disturb the big ones.
It is day time so we can do it, but reaching Kanakale, the police does not agree and comes to clearly tell us not to continue. So, ORC down, motor ON, we sail close to the East shore following the green marks (right side going to the Marmara sea).
We are very slow, head to wind, against the current, and a TWS of 35kts average. Yasasin is definitely not made for that kind of sailing.
The night is there right soon we pass the huge new bridge (Çanakkale). Slowly darker and darker until we cannot see, distinguish anything. No moon, lights on the shore, traffic, spray water. We have real difficulties finding out what is what.
After 2 hours (about 9pm), we hoist the ORC again and stop the engine when Senol is getting slighty worried about the diesel-tank level.
Stearing in those conditions is really not an easy task, and David and I relay each other a lot as Tugce finds it tough to maintain a relvant course with an ok speed. But later on, the wind will drop a little more, and we will be able to sail with a reasonable speed and course.
At 3pm, we are able to announce our ETA to the Marina. A last tack onto startboard heading North will be for us the closing chapter of this really tough delivery.
I do not wish that weather to anyone on any boats, but specially on an ORMA, that is not fun at all.
But we did it with minor damages listed here
– rotating system rope to be changed
– ORC halyard broken (replaced under sailing by the “man” halyard)
– J3 with leech damaged
Thank you to all 3 to have been so efficient during that hard trip.
We will remember that sailing 3 days for a long while.
Short video for those interested to see/feel our journey.
click here