BLUE CRUISE YACHT CHARTERS Sailing In Turkey And Greece Archaeology, History, Sun, and Fun Anniversary, Holiday, Honeymoon On Turkey's Turquoise Coast And In The Greek Aegean Who We Are
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Cruise Yacht Charters offers sailing holidays cruising the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey,
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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
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
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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
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
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