In early 1970s when I was young, my village Istinye in the northern Bosphorus was home to the most important dockyards of my country. Apart from ships, wooden sailboats up to 40 feet were also built and repaired here. In autumn, everybody came to watch as the country’s largest floating crane lifted the sailboats one by one out of the water, and put them on large wooden cradles. Then the dockworkers pulled them over greased timbers with giant pulleys to their spots for the winter. I admired the long keel boats with the sleek lines the most, and thought how beautiful it would be to sail on one of them. In fact in 1973 & 1974 I had the chance to paint some of these boats as an apprentice.
When I saw the list of boats allowed in the race, I was thrilled because I knew that our very close friend and sailing mentor Captain Fatty Goodlander’s previous boat was an Endurance 35, with very similar lines to the boats I was in love with when I was young. Fatty Goodlander is a famous ocean sailor who circumnavigated three times, also a prolific author with twelve books on ocean cruising and the previous editor of Cruising World magazine. In 1970, Fatty’s father was in the jury when the design of the Endurance 35 won the first prize in the International Amateur Boatbuilding Society’s contest. In 1971, at twenty years of age Fatty bought the plans for 25 US dollars, built the Endurance from ferrocement and sailed to the Caribbean. We knew this story by heart, and we also knew that the Endurance 35 was the epitome of long distance cruising, before the onset of serial production of fiberglass boats. Over 800 boats were built all over the world by both professionals and amateurs from wood, steel, ferrocement and GRP. So all these factors joined together I decided to buy an old Endurance 35 and to prepare her for the GGR.
Caramba was originally built in 1977 in France for a bureaucrat stationed in the Caribbean island of Guadaloupe. She sailed across the Atlantic to the Caribbean and back, and later in the Mediterranean. Our search for an Endurance 35 in a good condition led us to the beautiful small boat Caramba, owned for the past 15 years by Emanuel and Denise de Lobel from Belgium who sailed her out of a small marina in L’Hospitalet de L’Infant, near Barcelona. Reluctantly they agreed to part ways with their pretty vessel and wished her well on this big adventure.
Our dear friend, a boatyard owner and a long distance sailor himself, Mr. Can Surekli came to inspect the boat, as he would be leading the refit project. Selim went up the mast and down the bilge to check all the details to ensure a safe passage from Spain to Turkey, whilst Can was busy with the engine and some other technical issues.
The first part of the voyage was from L’Hospitalet de L’Infant to Menorca, 160 miles that we planned as a sea trial. We started on April 17 2025, in the afternoon at 15:00, with Can at the tiller of Caramba and Keyif following at a safe distance, as Caramba had no AIS nor radar. As the evening fell, two huge whales came by to say hello and maybe give the little ship some encouragement on its first long passage in many years. At night when a cruise ship got very close, Keyif circled round Caramba so that the ship would see us on the AIS and stay away. Both boats made it to an isolated anchorage on the north shore of Menorca just before nightfall next day. It was a rolly night, around Keyif’s dinner table, with many discussions about the passage that awaited. The alternator did not work, but we had the portable generator, the rigging looked flimsy but we thought it would hold until Turkey, the engine worked, but had small issues that we could handle, the fuel indicator did not function, but we would keep the tank full anyway. Could we sail Caramba to Turkey, a total of 1300 miles? Would the Mediterranean be kind to us? We did not know but we had to try…
Next morning we sailed to the beautiful harbour of Ciutadella, tied up, and enjoyed a wonderful evening ashore. The plan was now clear. We would sail Keyif first home to Turkey, leave Caramba in Mahon, Menorca, and get back to sail her to Didim, Turkey where she would be hauled out for the refit.
On May 10, Selim was back in Menorca with our Greek sailor friend Dimitri from Rhodes, an experienced sailor, the winner of the Aegean Trophy Race. They prepared Caramba for the second step, Menorca to Sardinia, 200 miles. After getting food and water they sailed out. No wind! In the Med, it is either on the nose or none, so this was the better option. However, as there was no fuel indicator, they had no way of knowing how much fuel there was left, and were stressed out as they approached Carloforte, Sardinia, where they planned to stop because a strong Levante was approaching. We thank the staff of Marina Siffredi staff for their priceless help on Caramba’s late night arrival.
After two cold rainy days in Carloforte, Sardinia, where thanks to Mr. Emanuel’s electric heater they could rest their weary bones, they started again, towards Palermo, Sicily, 250 miles. The sleeping arrangements inside the cabin were pitiful, the boat had two berths on the port side only, so when the boat heeled to starboard, they had to place some cushions on the floor and brace themselves against the table legs. It was quite uncomfortable, but as an experienced racer on spartan boats, Dimitri never complained of anything. Palermo was the next stop where Dimitri flew out to meet his crew for the Aegean Trophy race and our rowing friend Gediz Sarlar arrived to replace him.
Starting out from Palermo the night Gediz arrived, Caramba crossed the Messina Strait, but the Adriatic was not going to be that easy. In the Med, wind predictions are usually not very reliable. That night, an unpredicted strong north wind began increased to 30 plus knots. The old mainsail was torn in many places. Caramba’s small tiller autopilot was unable to handle the waves, so the captain was steering by hand and getting increasingly wet because of the unprotected cockpit. He decided to set the storm jib, left a very small piece of the yet torn mainsail up, adjusted the sheets patiently until the boat was steering herself. He then rigged an elastic rope on the tiller, and went inside as each wave was slamming hard into the cockpit. The little old boat was able to hold its course on its own, with no one at the helm, for over 40 hours, a fact which increased Selim’s trust in her sailing ability. Later when he started to enter the bay of Patras, it stopped and Selim could not start her back to action. With no engine and the strong north wind, the approach to the Corinth Canal was impossible, so Caramba changed course downwind towards the western tip of the Peloponese, to Pylos town in Navarin Bay with no autopilot, no engine, no alternator, torn mainsail, and a worn out crew.
After 450 miles under very spartan conditions, Pylos greeted Caramba with compassion and generous help. The harbormaster and his friends helped it dock safely under sail, charged the batteries, filled the diesel tanks. The local sunshade maker repaired the torn mainsail, the mechanic from the town fixed the alternator and worked on the engine desperately trying to fix it, but it was Can Surekli who solved the problem again with many phone consultations. The glass of the water separator filter on the diesel line was broken, sucking air into the diesel line and killing the engine. After 3 hours of hard work, Selim was able to start towards home to Turkey again, this time with an old childhood friend and a great sailor, Mr Erkan Nursen, the former owner of the beautiful classic sloop Forsa.
No wind again, until Milos. Erkan was desperate to get back home as his chemotherapy was scheduled for the next day. Could Selim make it across the Aegean alone? Naturally he would, but Caramba was crumbling under his feet and he was very tired. Rescheduling his chemo, Erkan continued towards Patmos island with Selim where they would exit Greece for Turkey. It was a race against time. On Patmos, ship agent Ms. Evdokia from Patmos Astoria waited in Grikos bay for their arrival so that they could finish the paperwork before immigration closed at 22:00. At 21:45 in total darkness Selim entered the bay, took a free buoy, then rowed Caramba’s little dinghy to Ms. Evdokia who rushed to the police with the boat papers. At 22:30 they were free to leave Greece. Home was now just 7 hours away.
Next morning at sunrise, Can was waiting at the breakwater in Didim, for Caramba. Since 2018 when we first met, he had sent us off to the Atlantic from the Caribbean island of Martinique where we were together on our boats, then had flown home to wait in this very same spot for our arrival from the Caribbean some 6.000 miles away. At Yachtworks, they had looked after Keyif as if she were a queen, healing her wounds, repairing the broken stuff, painting and varnishing until she was ready to go back again in September. Then Can and Çigdem had cast off her lines again and we had sailed away, back to the Caribbean, to find them waiting for us on their boat in Martinique. For Keyif, this was the home where she could rest, lick her wounds from the long voyages and renew herself. For us, Can, Cigdem and the 30 person staff at Yachtworks were like family, where we also felt we could rest and relax again. This time it was Caramba’s turn, she would haul out, undergo a complete refit, even change her name and be re-christened, to go back to sea again, ready for the Southern Ocean.