Jennifer
Abercrombie is the founder of Blue Cruise Yacht Charters. A native of Derbyshire,
England, she took her baccalaureate in computer sciences and obtained employment in the Aero-Engine
Manufacturing Division of Rolls-Royce PLC, eventually becoming a Systems Project Leader. She first
began exploring Greece and Turkey in 1988 and relocated to the latter country in 1994. In 1995 she
took employment as co-manager of marina facilities at the Club Marina in Gocek. There she obtained an
appreciation for the needs and wishes of both holiday-goers and the charter yacht community as well
as experience in facilities and financial management. She also acquired a proficiency in the Turkish
language and experience working with both Turkish nationals and others from different parts of the
world. The knowledge and experience of Turkey, culture, cuisine, and holiday-goers that she acquired,
together with her love of sailing and people, enabled Mrs. Abercrombie in 1997 to establish Blue
Cruise Yacht Charters, an agency dedicated to meeting the needs of yacht charterers. She
now resides in Derby, England, with her husband and their two children.
Gordon Abercrombie
Gordon Abercrombie
has since 1997 been the general manager of Blue Cruise Yacht Charters. He spent much of his youth in
Annapolis, Maryland, in Ankara, Turkey, and in Plymouth, England. In Plymouth he served in the Royal
Navy Sea Cadets and was assigned to HMS Golden Hind. Returning to Annapolis he obtained a bachelor's
degree in Naval Science from the U.S. Naval Academy, thereafter serving on destroyers with the
Atlantic and Mediterranean fleets, frequently visiting Greece and Turkey. Following tours of duty in
Viet Nam, in Washington, D.C., and with the Pacific Fleet, Lieutenant Commander Abercrombie resigned
his commission and entered the investment banking business where he eventually rose to positions in
senior management. Leaving investment banking in 1981, he purchased his own cutter-rigged yacht and
set sail for the eastern Mediterranean where the yacht has remained since arrival in 1983. From 1975
through 1997 Mr. Abercrombie was a member of the Board of Directors of E Capital Corporation and
from 1988 through 1997 of Wedbush Capital Corporation, both in Los Angeles where he also served on
the Audit Committee of Wedbush Morgan Securities. During the off-season Mr. Abercrombie resides in
Derby with his wife and their children, but during the sailing season may
usually be found in Gocek, Turkey.
William Abercrombie
Born at Marmaris,
Turkey, in 1997, William Abercrombie is employed by Blue Cruise Yacht Charters as a gofor and
jack-of-all-trades. He is principally engaged in delivery of yachts under power, hauling on halyards of
yachts under sail, and the heaving of mooring lines on yachts arriving. Fluent in Turkish,
he also knows a few Greek phrases appropriate in tavernas, strums a guitar idly, and engages in
most other pursuits haphazardly. He is nevertheless a valuable member of the Blue Cruise team.
Sian Abercrombie
Born at Marmaris,
Turkey, in 1998, Sian Abercrombie is employed by Blue Cruise Yacht Charters as a figurehead
and to grace the decks of unemployed Blue Cruise charter yachts. At such times she is principally
engaged in ignoring all but her holiday. Proficient in Turkish, she knows a few Greek phrases, plays
the piano well, and spends a lot of time day-dreaming. She is even so a valuable member of the Blue
Cruise team.
Copyright 1997-2016 Blue Cruise Yacht Charters. All rights reserved.
The information contained in this and associated web pages may not be re-published, rewritten,
or redistributed without prior written consent. This page last updated
10/30/2016
Dear Homo Sapiens, There is no need to continue
reading this page. What follows is intended for search engine robots and spiders and not necessarily
for human beings. Further information concerning yacht charters sailing the Greek and Turkish Aegean
may be obtained by clicking on the blue links immediately above. Thank You. Blue Cruise Yacht
Charters provides yacht charter clients full service. It engages in the search for, inspection of,
and proffering to prospective charterers of yachts available for charter, suggesting to clients the
best alternative given client preferences. Blue Cruise Yacht Charters also tenders travel advice,
suggesting places to stay and things to do en route to Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. It facilitates
foreign currency exchange. And it designs sailing itineraries, again based on client preferences. Blue
Cruise Yacht Charters offers sailing holidays cruising the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey,
among Aegean islands of Greece, and among Adriatic islands of Croatia. Yacht charters in Montenegro.
Yacht charters in Albania. Crewed yachts. Crewed motor-sailers or gulets. Bare boats. Sailing the
Mediterranean. Blue Cruise Yacht Charters recommends customized charter yacht sailing holidays or
honeymoons at the cradle of civilization. At the crossroads of history, crossroads which have seen the
passing of emperors and empires, of philosophers and enlightenment, of mathematicians and science, of medicine and humanity, of warriors and inhumanity. The
crossroads of history has seen as well the passing of innumerable seamen, those of oared galleys and
those of sailing ships. Of these many were corsairs, the word corsair a little-understood term
even today bringing forth as it does visions of cutthroat pirates with black eye-patches and peg legs.
Until recently in history, however, no nation-state maintained more than a token navy. Navies were
simply too expensive, and still are. In time of war much of the maritime force of any country consisted
of hired ships and of hired seamen. Hired seamen employed in war were termed corsairs. Rarely did
corsairs sport eye patches. As often as not corsair captains were from families of means, frequently
junior offspring of nobility, and it was often these men of means who owned the hired ships. A principle
employer of corsairs during the mid-centuries of the second millennium were the Hospitaller Knights of
St. John of Jerusalem, also called the Knights of Rhodes and later the Knights of Malta, an Order
maintaining a permanent navy of from four to seven oared galleys and a single galleon. And one such hired
captain was Jacques de Vincheguerre of Marseille. Born of minor nobility in the 1560's, Vincheguerre in
his twenties came into ownership of a three-masted twin-decked barque or urca similar to those depicted
at left, his carrying five square sails and a single lateen sail aft as well as a dozen bronze cannons,
and with which he promptly sought fame and fortune. Taking up residence at Malta, he obtained letters
patent or letters of marque from a Hospitaller Order perpetually at war with Islam. These licenses
entitled Vincheguerre to fly the Maltese flag at his truck and to carry out specific naval undertakings
prescribed by the Order's grand master. Among other covenants he was to treat captives in an humane
manner and to remit to the Order nine percent of the value of any plunder or other spoils of war.
Vincheguerre from the outset deployed annually into the eastern Mediterranean prowling the shores of
Anatolia and among Aegean islands then Ottoman. He first made it to the pages of history during the great
famine at Malta in 1591 when he brought to Valletta three captive Ottoman vessels full of grain. For this
and other exemplary service to the Order he was in 1594 permitted to incorporate a Maltese cross in a
Vincheguerre
escutcheon otherwise dominated by three dolphins on a blue
field. He was in the same year awarded the Croix d'Or des Chevaliers de la Religion for uncommonly valorous
conduct in service to the Order. In most years such service had been in conjunction with an assignment to
intercept Ottoman corsairs or Ottoman merchantmen, usually armed or convoyed or both, along one of the
wind-influenced tracks depicted above. In November 1603 Grand Master Alof de Wignacourt, himself a former
corsair, dispatched Vincheguerre aboard the grandmaster's personal corsair galleon Saint Louis in
company with Vincheguerre's urca and a third vessel on a mission to intercept 1604's annual caravan transporting
Egyptian tribute and Silk Road merchandise from Alexandria to Constantinople. Vincheguerre did so, severing
from the convoy and capturing several richly-laden vessels which he returned with skeleton crews to Malta.
Later dispersed by storm in the vicinity of Kythera, his own urca fell victim to three English pirates.
Vincheguerre's Saint Louis found her together with the pirates at the Aegean island of Milos.
Negotiations to no avail, Vincheguerre took the Saint Louis at night under sail into the harbor with
shoals right and left. A furious engagement ensued during which the largest of the pirate vessels was sent
to the bottom and the other two captured. Ten days later off the Aegean islands of Skiathos and Skopelos
his expanded squadron took eleven Ottoman grain carrying vessels en route to the
Ottoman fleet victualling depot at Volos and with them
in tow returned to a thankful island perennially short of food. Following birth of his third son Jacques II
at Malta in 1598, Jacques de Vincheguerre returned to Marseille where he became commander of the city's
harbor fortress of Saint Jean and an officer in the naval army of King Henry IV commanding oared galleys.
For six months he also became a gentleman of the king's household at Versailles. Following the death of
Henry IV, Chevalier de Vincheguerre was selected in 1616 by the regency government of Louis XIII and the
city of Marseille for an armed embassy to Tunis. The parties nominally at peace, the French were seeking
an end to piratical raids on French shipping from Tunisian ports by English and
Dutch pirates, including the John Ward of lyric fame, Sampson Denball, and, before
his murder by the Dey of Tunis, Simon Danseker. Following five months of protracted
negotiations accompanied by threat Tunis committed to cease harboring belligerents licensed or unlicensed,
to cease attacking French ships, and to end seizure of their cargoes and capture of their crews. It was
further agreed that all French slaves at Tunis and all Turkish slaves at Marseille were to be liberated.
While negotiating the Tunis protocol Vincheguerre's seven-ship flotilla carrying 1,500 marines took
numerous prizes outside of Tunis and
along the nearby coast of Algeria, some of them English pirates, all of them brigands without nation-state
letters of marque. Those captured were sold at Livorno, ships and crews. Promoted to lieutenant-general of
France's naval army early in Cardinal Richelieu's reform of the French Navy, Jacques de Vincheguerre lost
his life during the inconclusive 1622 Battle of Saint-Martin-de-Re (depicted at right) between French
Royalists and French Huguenots. He had lived to see his only daughter Bradamante wed and was succeeded in
most positions and at court by his eldest son Alexandre. His second son Philandre became a Hospitaller.
Like most warriors, even warrior-diplomats, Jacque de Vincheguerre's legacy at best demonstrates the
futility of a zero-sum game. For every winner at war there is a loser at war. He was both. A sailing
holiday at the crossroads of history designed by Blue Cruise Yacht Charters with guest input. A charter
yacht sailing holiday cruising the Turquoise Coast of Turkey.
A Blue Cruise. A honeymoon in Greece. Or a honeymoon in Turkey. A charter sailing yacht in Greece
cruising among Greek islands of the Aegean Sea. Island hopping. Greek island hopping. Or a crewed
charter sailing yacht to sail the southwest coast of Turkey. A honeymoon or holiday in Greece or
Turkey. A honeymoon or holiday aboard a proper sailing yacht chartered in Greece. Or a honeymoon or
holiday aboard a proper yacht chartered in Turkey. Charter your yacht from Blue Cruise Yacht
Charters, an agency dedicated to client service. Sail the Greek Aegean. Sail the Turkish Aegean.
Contact Blue Cruise Yacht Charters today at
bcycharter@aol.com or phone us at +90-533-230-5781.