Once 2 BOATS Meet at Sea, the RACE is ON!!!

7 meters above sea level...

  

 A beautiful summer day, lets cruise 20 Miles North to Sozopol, we decide in a friendly chat with krum, captain of the 34 footer beside us...

  Time to go, as the quay moves away, I watch our line slipping around it's bollard. Our small outboard drives us astern, as the bitter end races through the water, heading for the wall. I steer to port while Jenia quickly pulls the wet rope aboard. We're clear, motoring ahead towards the middle of the bay. The 34 foot cruiser motors out to sea.

  At about 150 meters away from the quay, a good pull on the halyard raises our Junk sail, bow pointing to sea, panel after panel canvas goes aloft. A light breeze enters the bay from North East, as morning turns to noon, things will freshen up and gradually turn clockwise to the East...

The halyard tightens, a final good yank and "plop" something flies off masthead and lands beside me in the sea. I cleat the halyard and go below, with my binoculars I quickly step back on deck, a good look aloft reveals that, half a cheek is missing off my halyard block. Ronstan beat Harken, the Junk Rig yard block and halyard block clashed, Ronstan being an absolute beast, knocked out Harken in the first round... The external piece of sheet metal is still holding it all together, but I can just see the white ball bearings shining through...

  My 2 stroke Tohatsu keeps thumping away, exhaling blue smoke and wondering... Why can't we just be normal? In Port of Tsarevo every year there are less sailboats and more motorboats, out of the remaining 5, why do we always have to sail the most??

Port of Tsarevo, the winds of change are blowing strong...

   Please excuse my little 3.5 HP engine, at 20 years old, he may know the sea, but he doesn't know me. He wasn't with us 13 years ago when sailors ruled the quay, when Port Tsarevo was an endless BBQ of grilled fish and alcohol all night long, when it was sailors only! Motor boats? Go to the bar. Some died, some moved, some got old... Now, only white Plastic with 300 horses packed into 6 cylinders, decorate the wall.

Krum, on his beautiful Van De Stadt, heading out...

I uncleat the halyard and drop a panel, I pull it back up. Harken is the man, after the bite Ronstan took off him, he's all good. By now Krum is way out of the bay, close reaching North on a starboard tack. I kill the engine, pull him up and sheet in. 'Crystal Clear' comes alive, her cambered panel drives her swiftly, hard on it, out to sea.  

  Proas love going to windward, cambered panels too. Krum is to the North chugging along, soon he will have to tack and turn East before he crashes into hard land. I keep going East, I will catch him later... I bear away and speed up. My Ama to windward slices through the surface. The tiller is light just a touch of weather helm, perfect balance.

  We all know, once 2 sailboats meet at sea, the race is on! Today, the competition has no chance. Dagger down, moving well, about 4 knots wake dead aft. Krum was greedy when he tacked North early, I keep going East, Proas are open water vessels, longer legs mean less shunts, every shunt is time lost... Tacking is dead easy, throw the tiller over and switch headsail sheets. Shunting is a difficult process of turning the boat back to front, first the sail is moved from bow to stern, then rudders are switched, front to back.

  

Crystal Clear, a Junk Rigged Balkan Proa...

   Every coin has two sides, heavy keels drive monos through the wind, multies with no keels and more freeboard are hard to tack. Many multi sailors, back their headsails to push their bows through, getting caught in irons is a common problem. Proas never get caught in irons, but shunting is hard work. A glimpse at my watch, my telltales, the compass, tells me it's still blowing North East, yet I know, a clockwise shift is coming next.

We're a mile out, time to shunt, I fall off onto a beam reach, the sheet runs freely through the double block, we stop. A pull on my shunting line and the 'A' frame mast begins to rotate, as it leaves the bow heading for the stern. Jenia lifts up the rudder and cleats it in it's raised position. I cleat the mast at the other end of the boat, now just deploy the new rudder, sheet in and head off backwards, yet again going forwards. The process took about a minute, we should clear cape 'Maslen Nos' as long as the wind keeps shifting East.

A great day and the best helmsman in the world, nobody can hold course like Jenia! 

  On course, compass reading 350, Krum is way ahead, heading for hard land. I raise my compass, the needle sets on the cape, we're sailing 60 degrees of the wind, heading up to 55 will only slow us down... We're catching up, the heavy cruiser is sailing closer yet not by much. He tacked, the wind is slightly shifting, bad for him, good for me. He cuts our course, as he sails East.

  We've been on course for an hour, by now compass reading dead North, almost mid day, the wind freshens and we speed up. A 10 Knot breeze and an easy 5 SOG, the cape is about 30 minutes ahead, I hold up my compass and hope the wind shifts more, I may not clear the cape, should have gone further out on my first leg, I think to my self... If the wind doesn't turn, I will pay 2 shunts for my impatience...

  Krum tacked now sailing North, ahead of me, slightly to the east. Any minute now we will smoke him, he will clear the cape, but I probably wont... A late shunt on a Proa is a death sentence. You must first head off onto a beam reach and stop the boat, sea room is vital for shunting! A bad shunt on my first Proa, landed me on the rocks exiting a tight bay, 8 years ago... That day Proas and the sea, seriously frightened me! I got cut up on the rocks, as the breakers threw me helplessly all over the place, I felt like a seal being tossed around by a killer wale before turning into lunch....  

  Knowing nothing about shunters, I assumed a Crab Claw schooner would be safer and easier to handle than a single big Oceanic Lateen. I couldn't have been more wrong. Shunting 2 sails at once, single handed is impossible, while you flip the one sail, the other keeps driving the boat in a circle, eventually you end up backwinded. A bad situation, meaning your Vaka (the big canoe) is to windward, your sails pressed by the wind against the masts and standing rigging, unable to go through, you are in big trouble! The rig could come down, Pacific Proas always present the Ama (small hull) to weather, their masts are stepped to the side on the Vaka, these craft have only 1 shroud going from masthead down the the Ama, a very strong configuration, since no other boat has such a wide base between mast step and chain plate, but once caught aback, as wind blows in the opposite direction, there is no shroud! This is a huge problem that has many solutions, depending on the type of boat and rig. But none are truly perfect... 

  While backwinded, the vessel drifts helplessly sideways. On Crab Claw rigged Proas the boat stops, many will even start going astern. The solution is, douse the sail and turn the boat by means of oars, paddles or motor, once Ama is back to windward, raise sail and fly away...

  My hybrid Junk rig is a great shunter, it shunts flawlessly, every time! Still you never know, a sudden wind or course change for any reason, and you're backwinded! If there's sea room, I gently bear away until we gybe, a phenomenon that I never expected when I designed this rig, yet it works every time!!! Crab Claws could only dream of this quality, and I truly don't know if there is any other shunting rig that can do this.

The "La'SHuNK" our 'Lateen rigged SHunting juNK'. It's called so, since the sail is connected to a moving spar, it moves to the other end of the boat, making it a Lateen rigged junk sail. The same way Lateen sails are rigged to yards which are mobile spars, vs masts which are fixed to deck. 

  I aim my hand held compass at Krum, he's to the east, the needle is climbing, as he slowly falls back. He's eating our dust, but ahead, hard rock is coming our way... I can go another 10 minutes maybe? But  better I shunt now and smoke him later again... A quarter of a mile should do I think... At 5 knots, 6 minutes is half a mile, half of that should be perfect. We shunt, now heading east, at about 2 minutes we pass astern of him, I can head north and gun him down, but 1 more minute to the east will assure I clear the cape, then as I go for the kill, if I could hold 350 compass, I should be over 60 degrees off the wind. This Proa loves close reaching at these angles, she goes like a bullet... It's time to shunt, first onto a beam reach, now sheets fly, flip the rig, change rudders, finally sheet in. Multies are like racing bikes at a red light... At green, they take off accelerating to full speed in a second, monos are freight liners, everything is slower but you can load as much as you want... 

   compass reading 355, it's good enough for now, the rocky cape is 2 miles long, in 10 minutes we will be in the middle, then I can fall off a touch more, for now, all good. The chase is on, that Mono can run, but it can't hide... Dagger down, tell-tails streaming aft, in front a single stern flying an Austrian flag, ahead to it's left Maslen light, on top of a bare cliff...

    Crystal Clear creeps up on her prey from behind, our Ama peeling open the sea, the bow wave rises and opens wide, a perfect cut, as if it was flesh cut open by a surgeon... Astern, nothing! zero wake. The mono is not far, she's digging deeper and deeper... Her bow wave is her speed bump, just that she will never be able to climb over it... We fly by, leaving him to port, stealing his wind, leaving him wondering... Is that Proa going forwards? or am I going backwards?? They fall back and I step on it as we bear away another 5. The cape goes by I open up onto a beam reach, now we're flying over 6 knots, maybe 7? maybe more?? I don't know... I just know that on multies you're always sailing to windward, into your apparent wind, sails are always sheeted in unless you're broad reaching or running, yet the more you bear away the faster you go...

Crystal Clear F4 sailing, like a Phantom...  Balkan Shipyards 

   40 minutes bring us to the next cape. Sozopol is now to the west high above the sea, on top of a steep cliff, rising out of a foamy white rocky stretch... The mono is gone, we round the first cape and a broad reach brings us to the next, a 'u turn' around that one and we head in. Port of Sozopol, we enter on motor, to port the long quay of the border police, to starboard the marina. We keep going, heading in for the fishing boat basin. Here a decade ago with our mono we used to drop the hook in the middle of the basin, diving down to retrieve our CQR in this dirty water, getting cut up by the metal junk scattered around the bottom, fishing for the chain and what it got snagged onto, was a dreadful experience...

  Now, I must climb the mast and change a block, so, since I truly have a problem... Why not tie up to the border police's wall? the forbidden quay! Because today, we have a good enough reason to do so...

A great day went by. Tomorrow we go North to Nessebar, now? Put on my harness and get up that mast!

Jenia at the bottom cleats me to the top, Tohatsu peeping up through the hole... A Junk Rigged Balkan shunter, from Balkan shipyards

Keep Shunting.

  Balkan Shipyards