The Bosphorus Cup Day Overall: TP52 Arkas Blue Moon wins Bosphorus Cup
by Quinag 22 Sep 20:54 PDT
19-22 September 2024
There was a close tussle on the final day of the Bosphorus Cup 2024 but in the breezy finale it was the TP52 Arkas Sailing Team - Blue Moon who surged to victory in Istanbul.
With a variety of wind strengths and different course configurations, the 23rd edition of the Bosphorus Cup demanded solid all-round skills and Serhat Altay's well-drilled crew looked ready for any challenge.
Having only just taken over ownership of TP52 less than five months ago, Altay and his team have been getting used to the power of the 52-footer which formerly competed on the TP52 Super Series as the Germany boat Container.
The wind was blowing 9 to 10 knots at midday but built later in the afternoon to 17 knots. Principal race officer Nino Shmueli sent the 95-boat fleet into a two-lap windward/leeward race followed by the finale of a 13 nautical mile coastal race through the islands in the Sea of Marmara.
Throughout the three-day event, four boats have broken clear of the pack after the first 10 or 15 minutes of each race. The sea dragon on Arkas Sailing Team's mainsail has been chasing the bigger boats all weekend, the Farr 55 Orient Express 6, the Volvo Ocean 70 Aiolos and the 86ft Maxi called Meliti, owned by Stratis Andreadis.
The windward/leeward courses were always going to play to the strengths of the smaller boats, which is why the race committee set a coastal course to enable ocean-going thoroughbreds like Aiolos and Meliti to stretch their sea legs. Through the twists and turns past the idyllic Marmaran islands of Burgaz, Kasik and Heybeli, a duel ensued between George Procopiou's Aiolos and the Arkas TP52. However on the final windward push back to the finish in Kadikoy, the canting-keeled power of the VO70 was too mighty to resist and the Greeks on Aiolos sailed away to an easy line honours victory.
Big cheers rang out of TP52 Arkas Sailing Team - Blue Moon when the Turkish team crossed the finish line in second place. As Queen's "We are the Champions" rang out across the water from a jubilant and crowded spectator vessel, Altay's crew knew they had done enough to secure overall victory on corrected time.
The winners had been pushed hard by early series leaders, Timofey Zhbankov's JPK 11.80 Rossko Racer, who had sailed beautifully in the lighter breeze of the first day but didn't quite have the horse power to match the bigger boats in the bigger breeze. Arkas finished first in today's windward/leeward race and were third on corrected time at the end of the coastal race.
Rossko Racer were second overall with former winners Coca Cola Içecek - Das Asterisk racing their Farr 40 to third place overall. The 40ft division was the tightest and closest fought at all the turning marks on the windward/leeward courses, and small details translated to a big difference in the outcome. Yasar Doga Aribas' team on Coca Cola sailed their Farr 40 very consistently to come out just ahead of Orient Express VI, the Farr 55 owned by sisters Zeynep Atabay Taskent and Ayse Atabay. Orient Express was always in the running and the team's victory on the fast-flowing currents of the Bosphorus Strait on Saturday was the high point of a series that led to them claiming fourth place overall.
As for Blue Moon's overall victory, British crew member and team coach Martin Watts put their success down to one overriding goal. "These past three days we just kept it very simple. Avoid doing anything silly at all times," he said. "For the reaching course on the coastal race we could have put up bigger sails and we could have done more complicated things, but we resisted the temptation. It was good fun racing against the bigger boats like the VO70. The mechanics on our boat are very good, and sometimes when we're tacking the crew aren't even talking to each other. Everyone just gets on with their jobs and it all seems to work."
Turkish trimmer, Fikret Oral, said the Blue Moon crew has been working hard to get to grips with the new boat as quickly as possible after only importing it from Australia in May. "Eight or nine years ago we managed to win the Bosphorus Cup in the Kerr 40 and now we are happy to win again with this boat. It's good to see the size of boats in Turkey getting bigger and to have the 70 and 86-footers here this year in this tricky venue. We are from the south of the country where the wind is very stable and here in Istanbul the wind is very shifty, very interesting and it's a great challenge of sailing skills, so we love it when we are able to win here."
The shifting, ever-changing breeze of Istanbul is why event founder and organiser Orhan Gorbon introduced the concept of 'Theater of Winds' to this year's regatta. "The Bosphorus Cup started as a regatta purely for the sailors, and that is still the most important element," he said. "But this year we really pushed the broader aspects of the Bosphorus Cup, bringing the six dancers to represent the six different winds that sailors and others will experience on the swirling currents of the Bosphorus Strait.
"Saturday's party at the Çiragan Palace Kempinski was a great opportunity for many people to feel more connected with the maritime history and culture of Istanbul. With posters, banners and billboards up all around this city of 15 million inhabitants, the Bosphorus Cup is our greatest opportunity connect more people with this beautiful sport of sailing."