www.syfamagusta.com - PCO Baltic Cup (GB)

The Baltic Cup organized annually by Private Charter Ostsee (PCO) shipping agency based in Kiel, Germany, has been my charter company for as long as Famagusta has been in the Baltic. In this sailing race only the chartered boats chartered by the company took part. During the five days of the event, around 1800 liters of free beer were consumed (officially).

PCO BALTIC CUP

Τhe "Open Vaseline Party" and the drunk sailor Björn

In a sailing race that we took part in 2009 (PCO Baltic Cup) we had met a group of jung boys from Kiel, champions in trimming of sails and correct steering the boat. They raced a rented Bavaria with a huge flag with the word “Vaseline” displayed both in the harbors and on the course.

Years ago, in another race, after winning the first race and docking to port, they hung four or five women's bras from the boat's rails and a red silk panty with the letters "Love" embroidered in gold on the flagstaff. Next day the organizers excluded them from the race and it passed three years before they were re-admitted and under conditions. This time, in the race we participated in, they had carried with them an advertising flag of the product "Vaseline", six 10 Liter bottle of vodka and party-lights which they hung, whenever they were docking, on the boom, under the spreyhood and on the cockpit rails.

We excepted the invitation to the "Open Vaseline Party" that they have organized on the boat. We wanted to congratulate them for their victory again in the first race and on the other hand to "mislead them", offering them a Johnnie Black Label and a Spanish Rioja as a gift. We had no idea about the vodka pool... Cheers ones! cheers twice! cheers ten times, and at midnight, when we had already become totaly drunk, we politely said good night and departed with sideways steps, leaving behind us the cockpit with the party lights, the changing young people and our jungest sailor... Our sailor , Björn, insisted on staying and fighting the boys from Kiel with wodka shots. He enjoyed their company and the free drinking.

In the morning I heard footsteps on the deck of our boat and someone asking: "Are you sure this is your boat?" I didn't hear the answer. In the morning I found our baby-sailor sleeping in the cockpit, half inside, on the cushions, and half outside, with his legs hanging from the rails and looking out to the sea.

From what the foreign captain later told us, he found him sleeping in the same manner again, half on the dock and half on the rails of a foreign vessel. When he saw him in the night and picked him up, he asked him what boat he belonged to, and he, although totally drunk, answered: "To the Famagusta."

Sailors reminder: Drink what you want and as much as you want. Just remember where your boat is moored, or even, for better or for worse, its name!