It’s not every day a boat owner has the opportunity to get some action shots of their vessel under sail. Up until now all the photographs of Esper have been from the boat itself or whilst moored up in the marina. What we were after were some shots of her whilst under sail, so when out neighbour, Andrea, offered to take Salih on his boat, Blue’s Wien, one Sunday morning it was an offer we could not turn down.
The day before Salih had said he would take the photos but it wasn’t until Sunday morning that I had confirmation it was all going ahead. This left me just under an hour to try and find at least one spare pair of hands. Mustafa, Jon and Teddy were all working so I gave Marion a call, a lovely French lady I’d met the night before through Nilgun. I emphasised the tight schedule since Andrea’s guests were arriving at eleven and within twenty minutes Marion had turned up!
When Bilge called to say that Salih had left his camera out of town I thought things were starting to go tits up, because he said he’d be late by half an hour. I really do have to learn to chill out when it comes to timings and appointments here in Bodrum! An eleven o’clock start does not mean an eleven o’clock start! It means it will not start before eleven so add an hour and people may start turning up later. As it was Andrea’s party didn’t turn up till gone twelve so I spent the rest of the day apologising to Marion who I’d rushed unnecessarily.
Anyway, we were off, Bilge and Marion on Esper and Salih on Andrea’s boat, a classic trendil. Immediately we got up the main, the mizzen and the genoa but I hadn’t counted on the wind being so strong! Esper was tipping right over and I spent the first half hour battling at the helm whilst instructing the other two on what to do. This division of concentration meant that I couldn’t trim the sails properly so the first set of photographs and video footage shows a luffing foresail! We tacked a few times past Blue’s Wein but I was annoyed with myself for not getting the stay sail out in time! Even so, the shots look great!
We decided to head down to the south of Kara Ada and find the sheltered bay there to take some more photographs. Boy did we have some fun with that wind! After getting the fourth sail out we were absolutely flying! I know we didn’t quite hit 9 knots but it was pretty close. Esper was pretty tough to steer with the beam reach and a good force 4/5 tipping us over but she lapped it up and we put in a couple of gybes for the hell of it!
Eventually we got to the anchorage and I successfully anchored, but I wasn’t happy with our position so instead we came along side Blue’s. This wasn’t the best idea since there was still a bit of wind in the bay but at least I knew Esper wouldn’t break her anchor and drift on to the rocks!
Salih and I then took a ride ashore and climbed the volcanic mountain side of Kara Ada to take some great shots from above of Esper nestled up to Blue’s Wien. As you can see the day was a worthwhile exercise as we ended up with some pretty good photos!
Video Clip
Here’s a youtube video clip taken by Salih. Ignore bad sail shape and so in, this was one of the first times I’d ever sailed as skipper.
And here’s the google version if that didn’t work for you:
If you like our content and would like to support us, we will give you ad-free access to our videos before they go live to the public, discounts in our shop, access to Jamie’s iconic full-res photographs, and supporter-only blog posts. Click our ugly mugs for more info!
