Cruising - Black Sea to Bosphorous
Before the curtain fell: Black Sea 1987 Rod Heikell recalls an adventurous trip across the Black Sea in an era when the USSR still existed, Margaret Thatcher was our leader and the Pet Shop Boys were number one
PHOTOS ROD HEIKELL/ISTOCK
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ur voyage in 1987 was in Rozinante, a Mirror Offshore 18 that is not the most agile sailing boat Van de Stadt designed. The voyage down the Danube started in Regensburg in Germany and continued on downstream through the eastern bloc to Constanta on the Black Sea. Being unable to get fuel in Romania the 200 mile passage to Istanbul took four days under sail. After a breather in Istanbul we sailed Rozinante on through the Marmara Sea to the Aegean and down to Bodrum on the Turkish coast. This voyage was made before the
Iron Curtain tore and the former satellites of the USSR broke free from their communist masters. 24th August: We departed after the Romanian officials arrived at midday - they had said they would be there by eight in the morning. We left with the warning that we must proceed straight out to sea until we were 10 miles off the coast before changing course for Bulgaria. We had a fair wind in the afternoon and through the night although the tubby little Rozinante was only making 3-4 knots under sail. She didn’t come equipped with a big genoa, just the main and the working jib in bright red plastic of some sort, but still we
DECEMBER 2021 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
ABOVE Rozinante, Rod's trusty Mirror 18 Offshore
were happy to be under way and things were going smoothly enough. We took three hour watches so that the person off-watch had just three hours to get some sleep. This system had worked well enough before and both of us were soon into the rhythm of a longer passage that should take around 2½ days at this speed. I was back to dead reckoning to get us down to the Bosphorus and Istanbul with just a chart, our estimation of speed and the compass bearing. That night we had a celebration dinner of fried rice with the few vegetables we had been able to find in Romania and some leftover tins from the saloon locker. The
