Bodrum Cup: a hundred tons of wood under sail
The world's only regatta where traditional Turkish gulets race — wooden schooners up to thirty-five metres long that until 1989 were considered slow motor vessels for tourists.
A gulet is a Turkish wooden schooner. Two or three masts, length from fourteen to thirty-five metres, weight over a hundred tons. They were built for sponge and fish diving, then converted for tourists and fitted with diesel engines.
By the late eighties, gulets barely sailed under canvas at all. The masts stood there for show.
One club decided otherwise
In 1989 the ERA Bodrum yacht club came up with a regatta with a clear purpose: to remind everyone that a gulet is a sailing vessel. At the same time, to teach both owners and the professional crews of the charter fleet how to sail.
The idea looked doubtful. A hundred tons of wood, heavy rigging, a crew used to switching on the engine. Even so, the regatta was held — and has been held every year since, in the third week of October.
What it looks like
More than one hundred and fifty vessels, and these are not ordinary yachts. Picture a wooden schooner the size of a small ferry, beating to windward under full sail.
The rule is simple: only vessels of traditional wooden construction compete. Fibreglass boats aren't barred from entering, but they race outside the classification.
There is no other regatta like it in the world. Classic wooden-boat races are plentiful, but nowhere else does a fleet of hundred-ton gulets take to a racecourse under sail.
Five days, different ports
The regatta runs five days and each year is tied to different bays and marinas around Bodrum. The courses are coastal, with passages between anchorages.
The other half is the evenings. In spirit, the Bodrum Cup is closer to a festival than a championship: there is less hard sporting rivalry here than conversation on the quay.
October in the Aegean
The timing is well chosen. The summer heat has broken, the tourist wave has receded, the water is still warm, and the meltemi — the strong northerly summer wind — has usually settled down by October.
That makes the Bodrum Cup a comfortable regatta for those who want less racing and more sailing in good weather and unusual company.
If you're going
You don't need your own boat: gulets are chartered together with their crew, and getting aboard can be as simple as coming on as a passenger or a deckhand.
Worth knowing in advance:
- A gulet doesn't feel like a yacht. The momentum is enormous, manoeuvring is slow, and handling the sails is physical, manual work.
- The crew of a charter gulet is usually Turkish, and not everyone aboard will speak English.
- Book a place well ahead of time — the fleet is large, but so is the demand.
A good option if you want to try racing for the first time without competitive pressure, and see how sailing was done before the age of fibreglass.