Follow Serendip’s delivery from Perpignan to Marmaris

‘Serendip’ a 2016 Jeanneau 419 is the first of two new yachts joining Perfect Sailing in 2016. She will be followed by Malabar a brand new Oceanis 45 in July.

2016-Jeanneau-new-transom-design

There will be slightly varying crew through the delivery, starting with the owner, his friend John and Martin a friend of Charlie who takes over from Ted as skipper in Sardinia following the first leg of the journey.

Below is a Google map of her berth in Perpignan before she departed. The onboard satellite phone will send position information regularly so we can check her progress for crew safety. There are in fact two sat phones onboard so we will see differing pictures depending on which is used. First is from the Iridium system.

Final_Screenshot 2016-04-15 16.27.57

The crew experienced very strong winds and big seas as they escaped south from the Golf de Lion. Serendip proved strong and fortunately nothing broke, quite a shakedown!

Position 2 (from Delorme system)

Final_Screenshot 2016-04-07 13.17.24

Position 3

Final_Screenshot 2016-04-07 18.21.12

Yacht & crew arrived safely at Cagliari at the southern end of Sardinia, ready for the scheduled crew change. After two days of checking, cleaning and first engine service, the new crew arrived and they set sail this Wednesday, we think bound for Palermo or possibly as far as Corfu as the engine service is complete. It all depends on the weather which is forecast as light winds, unfortunately from the East.

serendip position 13:46 14th April 2016

Position we received at 13.46 GMT on the 14th put ‘Serendip’ here.

Serendip position 15 April 2016

‘Serendip”s position 14:05 15th April 2016

Serendip 18-04-2016

Great progress is being made. Here is Serendip’s position at 13.30 UTC today 18th April 2016. She is just approaching the Rion Andirrion suspension bridge.

Rion Andirrion suspension bridge near Patras Greece
Rion Andirrion suspension bridge near Patras Greece

Rios Andirrion suspension bridge

Serendip approaching the bridge, shown on the right.

Corinth & Athens
Corinth & Athens

Well Serendip has had a busy few days. She passed through Corinth Canal then stopped of in Athens for 24 hours. Next stop was an overnight hide out from the strong 30+ knots winds in Nisos Antipaxos (where do they get these names?)

Cyclades & Dodecanese
Cyclades & Dodecanese

An early morning phone conversation about weather strategy decided there was a 24 hour window to move east before even more wind arrived from the Peloponnese in the south west.

Landfall Turkey now in view
Landfall Turkey now in view

Serendip is scheduled to arrive in Turkey this evening (Saturday) and probably arrive in Orhaniye Sunday morning. Once she is here we will get lots more pictures and perhaps a video interview with the crew as John, whilst very experienced, has not done such a long trip before, and deliveries are quite different to cruising as there is a clock attached!

One door closes….farewell ‘Salsa’

Salsa our Jeanneau 379 left for pastures new this week.

Salsa-Jeanneau-379

Owners Jason & Sara brought Salsa to us in 2013 for two years, and stayed three. Their innovative idea was to buy a yacht for charter in the Med and move her around so they could experience different areas and cultures.

We wish you well in pastures new.

 

The season approaches

It’s that time of year again. All the major winter work has been completed, and we are now left with polishing & antifouling. The first yachts leave for our summer home in Orhaniye in a few short weeks.

This has been a particularly interesting winter as we got to organise some (for us) unusual works. One of our gardienage fleet (not for charter, we just maintain her) was planned to be wrapped. Self adhesive vinyl is stretched over the hull providing a new finish for much less than re painting. It turned out the previous paint system was barely holding on to the hull and wouldn’t have been an secure substrate, so she was repainted instead. This took two weeks, nine coats and a lot of sanding. At the same time, the owner decided a new teak deck was long overdue, so that was replaced as well.

We are very fortunate here in Marmaris to have skilled people to complete these works.

I will cover each of these jobs with photos in a later post, for now its back to the polishing!

Kevin

Is Turkey a safe sailing destination?

That was a popular question we were asked at the 2016 London Boat Show.

There is doubt that the public’s perception is of an area over run with fanatical Muslim terrorists. The Syrian exodus of last summer had people commenting to us they didn’t want to sail in waters with dead bodies floating by, and who can blame them. The reality is almost all the Turkish people are Muslim, and lead their lives much as we do in Europe. They are family people, warm and welcoming, as horrified as you may be about the problems. In Orhaniye where we are based there is a new Syrian family who have been welcomed with open arms and supported in their new life by the villagers. To realistically believe it’s a country at war is nonsensical, but it does fuel western politicians & media needs for a bad guy. It used to be the communists of the McCarthy era in the middle of the last century, Then we had the two gulf wars and the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which they are probably still searching for! Now its the Muslim threat.

There are issues to resolve in Turkey, some are political, some relate to the huge numbers of Syrians attempting to get to specific areas of Europe.

The key questions was is it safe to travel here. Like any country there are areas best avoided, and the Foreign Office talks of an area within 10kms of the Turkish/Syrian border based around Diyarbakir. This area is nearly 618 miles (1070km) east of the tourism areas of SW Turkey, equivalent of London to Belfast and back. Last year not one of our clients witnessed anything related to this migration, most of it occurring well North of us near Kos. Feedback from one of our clients last year was “I am more in fear of Muslim fundamentalism in the UK, than Turkey. This probably makes a lot of sense, because of UK July 11 bombings and ‘je suis Charlie’ the fundamentalists are going to wage war in your country, not theirs.

In summary, Yes it’s perfectly safe to travel and sail here. Its as beautiful as ever. This year it will also be much cheaper because of the fear created by the media.

There is another tragedy here. The locals whose livelihoods depend on tourism are already losing their jobs and suffering. We have seen bases closed, people let go, and flights reduced. We predict a reduction of 50% this year. Figures for the Russian visitors over the winter have reduced by 99%!

As we were told as children “Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers” is as true today as it was then.

Kevin 18/03/2016

 

It’s a new day!

Perfect Sailing base staff
The dream team

So we have finally decided its time to create a Perfect Sailing blog to keep all you nice people updated on what we do, where we do it and why!

We’ll cover the political situations which may or not be affecting yacht charter throughout the world. We’ll post news and photos of anything we feel you’ll find interesting or pertinent, as well as direct news of our new yachts, facilities and toys as they become available

We really hope you enjoy this, and feel free to send us your contributions.

Kevin & Sara, Perfect Sailing.