Yachting World — February 2018

GREAT SEAMANSHIP

INTRODUCED BY

TOM CUNLIFFE

Crab’s Odyssey:

Malta to

Istanbul in an

Open Boat

by Penny

Minney

Taniwha Press

UK, £10.50

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through the

bosphorus

PENNY MINNEY’S ACCOUNT OF TRAVELLING THROUGH THE BOSPHORUS IN A SMALL

OPEN BOAT WITH HER OXFORD STUDENT CHUMS IS A TRULY CHARMING ADVENTURE

H

igh adventure takes many forms, and must
be seen in light of the times, the people and
the vehicle. Penny Minney’s Crab’s Odyssey,
written in 2016 using log books dating back
to when Europe was recovering from World
War II, makes one long for a lost youth, for naïvety, for
courage founded on optimism and for a wine-dark sea
where the hands-on learning of Penny and her friends
could overturn the conclusions of academic giants.
Crab is a 17ft clinker-built open ship’s lifeboat, powered
by sail, oar and, when it worked, a diminutive British
Seagull outboard. Her crew in this extract are three young
female students at Somerville College, Oxford. The
cockleshell craft and her people spend four summers
travelling the Eastern Mediterranean from Malta. Perhaps
the best way of experiencing a fl avour of their exploits is
to quote a few of the chapter headings: Stormbound in
Sicily; Island of Murderers; Rendezvous in Santorini; and
the extract which appears below, Exploring the Currents of
the Bosphorus.
We join Penny and her chums at the southern end of
this historic waterway to the Black Sea, hitherto held
impassable under sail, oar, or even British Seagull.

The following day we made contact with the
commodore of the yacht club, called Kemal.
He invited us to take tea with him on his yacht
at the end of the day. It was strange going down the
companionway to a cabin, taking care not to bang my
head as I went. Our host was dismissive at fi rst. He said he
was not sure whether we would be able to make progress
against all the various currents, even with the Seagull on
full throttle, and we stressed that as far as possible we
would try and do it under sail.
Gradually he began to warm to the paradoxical nature
of our plan, and I began to like him more and more. He
spread out his large-scale chart on the cabin table and
showed us the Narrows, where the stream was no more
than 700 metres wide. It was marked by a fortress on each
side of the Bosphorus. Here the current sped up to four
knots, and between Rumeli Burnu and Anadolu Hisari was
known as the Devil’s Current, because it could run at up to
seven knots. He showed us how there was a kind of ‘dog’s
leg’ – a sharp bend in the channel, at Kandilli on the Asiatic
side. This sharp bend caused a fi erce current to sweep
across the straits, making a millrace where it hit the
European side at Arnavutköy. He did not tell us where to
tack, how to make best use of back eddies – we would see
clearly enough, when the time came. He did tell us that

the rule was that up-going small boats hugged the two

shores, while southbound traffi c used the main current in

the centre of the channel – bigger vessels kept on the port

side of a central line, each way.

Arnavutköy itself, the Albanian village about halfway

up the Bosphorus, was one of his favourite places. He told

us that off the point, the current ran so strongly that,

according to the Renaissance traveller Gyllius, even crabs

could make no headway, so they left the water and

travelled overland.

Kemal stressed that we would not actually be able to

enter the Black Sea without a special pass, and it would not

be worth our trying to get one. Sally already knew this, and

knew that there was a line of buoys just north of

Buyukdere beyond which passage was forbidden. He told

us a little about the fortress at Rumeli Hisari, which had

been built in 1452. After Constantinople had fallen, it had

no further military use, so it became a prison, and the

bodies of those executed would be tossed into the

fast-moving water.

Into the current

We set off under engine at 8.15 am. None of us three

weighed much more than nine stone, and Crab rode high

in the water, responding much more friskily than usual to

sudden puffs of wind, heeling unexpectedly. We felt

nervous enough, setting off to battle with the currents in

this vast waterway, but her friskiness gave me a jittery

feeling. We passed plenty of weekend fi shermen, their

small boats not so much smaller than Crab.

Close to the Asiatic coast, more or less opposite the

entrance to the Golden Horn, is a little rocky knoll with a

white tower on it, known to Westerners as Leander’s Tower.

To the Turks, it is Kiz Kulesi – Maiden’s Tower. We chugged

slowly past Kiz Kulesi at 9.05 am, and made our

crossing back to the Palace of Dolmabahçe. As we

crossed towards the palace we looked westwards i

Setting forth

across the inky

waters in the

diminutive

clinker-built

lifeboat

February 2018 71