The Med-made sailor with a mission to help disabled children: Golden Globe Race skipper Dr. Selim Yalcin in his own words

As he prepares for the 2026 Golden Globe Race, Dr. Selim Yalcin reflects on Mediterranean maritime history, sailing to help children with a disability, and keeping his race refit close to home.

Dr. Selim Yalcin writes for Yachting Monthly:

I grew up in an Istanbul that lived by, on, and of the water.

From childhood I was in love with the sea, mesmerised by the ships and the traditional wooden kayikis that came from and sailed to distant shores, by the fishermen who rowed out on wooden boats before the sunrise and came home with fish enough to feed the whole city.

I longed to become a part of the life of the seamen I saw, one engulfed with hardship, mystery, and freedom.

As a young man, I fished my living out of this difficult, stormy stretch of water with its treacherous currents and dense shipping traffic on a five meter, open wooden boat.

I learned to sail in the Bosphorus with no engine, and to feel the winds by their smell.

The famous northerly Boreas carried the cool weather of the Black Sea, while the Lodos brought warm weather and the parfume of the Aegean from the Mediterranean.

Life took me on a different professional path. I became a physician, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon dedicated to treating disabled children.

Over a 40 year career I have written books, organised meetings, helped thousands of children and families, and founded the regional Eastern Mediterranean and European Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Disorders (EEMCPDM) group under the auspices of the world’s pioneer organisation, American Academy of Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Disorders (AACPDM).

But I never could stay away from my first love for long. I never quit the sea.

Sailing around the world

As my confidence as a sailor grew over the years, I ventured into the Aegean Sea, and later the Mediterranean.

I had the luck of sharing my love of the sea with a woman who also adored it.

In 2012 we bought our ultimate sailboat, cast off the lines that tied us to shore, and went off to realise our childhood dream of sailing around the world for the next six years on our boat Keyif, an Alubat OVNI.

I continued to sail to the Caribbean and back to Turkiye every year, but it was not enough.

I still had the dream that had haunted me for years: to sail to the places I had always read about, in the wake of my heroes, in search a great adventure and true seamanship. To sail to Cape Horn, to the Southern Ocean, and back to civilisation.

‘If you can sail in the Aegean, never fear sailing anywhere else, because you have experienced the worst,’ our good friend and sailing guru, Captain Fatty Goodlanderm has told us.

All my life before seemed preparation for this once in a lifetime adventure.

Why Selim Yalcin is taking on the Golden Globe Race

I consider myself among the last representatives of the Mediterranean’s ancient maritime tradition.

To sail in the Golden Globe Race will be to pay a debt of gratitude to the boatbuilders and seafarers of the Mediterranean, as well as to my earlier masters in the Bosphorus and the Prince Islands from whom I learned everything I know about the sea.

I will sail to honour the brave and capable sailors who paved the way for hundreds, maybe thousands of years, from whose knowledge and experience rose all the technical developments that today’s sailors savour freely.

By christening my boat HelpDisabledChildren, I also hope my Golden Globe Race will draw the world’s attention to the treatment of disabled children.

The Eastern Mediterranean and European Cerebral Palsy and Developmental Disorders (EEMCPDM) group held the first ever international meeting for the care of disabled children in our country, and will hold another in 2027 in Turkiye with more than 500 colleagues from around the world.

I plan to use the support I receive for the race to help finance the 2027 meeting in order to make it free for all participants from developing or relatively poor countries.

Choosing the Endurance 35 for the GGR

In the early 1970s, my village Istinye, in the northern Bosphorus, was home to the most important dockyards in the country.

Ships and wooden sailboats up to 40 feet were built and repaired here.

In autumn, everybody came to watch the country’s largest floating crane lift them out of the water and put them on large wooden cradles. The dockworkers pulled them over greased timbers with giant pulleys to their winter spots.

I always admired the long keel boats with sleek lines the most, and thought how beautiful it would be to sail one.

When I saw the list of boats allowed in the race, I was thrilled.

My close friend and sailing mentor Captain Fatty Goodlander’s previous boat, which he sailed to the Caribbean when he was just 20 years old, was an Endurance 35 with very similar lines to the boats I had loved when I was young.

The Endurance 35 is the epitome of long distance cruising, before the onset of serial production of fibreglass boats. Over 800 boats were built all over the world by both professionals and amateurs from wood, steel, ferrocement, and GRP.

I decided to buy a 1977 Endurance 35 I have called HelpDisabledChildren and to prepare her for the GGR with the support of my circle of friends, boatbuilders, metal workers, sailmakers, carpenters, electricians, and chandlers.

But before I bought it, the first thing I did was call my long time sailing friend Can Sürekli, who owns the boatyard, to ask if he would take on this project with me.

He said yes, and is now my reserve skipper in case I cannot go.

An extensive race-ready refit: ‘More difficult than building a new boat’

I sailed HelpDisabledChildren all the way to the east of the Mediterranean and started an extensive refit in Yachtworks boatyard in Turkiye in June of 2025.

It is an immense project, more difficult than building a new boat.

When the Yachtworks team started to dismantle the deck, we realised that the balsa core of the fibreglass sandwich construction was rotten.

We had to remove the upper polyester layer and reconstruct it with plywood. Later, the whole deck was covered with polyester.

Everything in the cabin including the galley, fridge, head, hoses, electrical wires, batteries, and tanks were taken out.

Finally the boat became an empty shell (except for the bulwarks; Can insisted on keeping the originals to ensure hull strength).

The old paint was removed and the hull was strengthened by extra layers of fibreglass.

The bases of all the stanchions, chainplates, tracks and clutches, winches, bowsprit and the pulpits were also reinforced with extra layers of fibreglass with aluminium plates in between wherever necessary.

The cockpit and the companionway were completely redone. The cockpit base was strengthened with frames and everything was covered with fibreglass.

According to the Golden Globe Race rules, the lockers were reconstructed to be totally waterproof.

Can ordered our carpenter Fatih to prepare compartments for the diesel and water tanks which would also serve as an inner skeleton for the hull when covered with fibreglass.

I made very precise, 3D templates from cardboard, later computerised images were drawn from these templates by our engineer Çağlar and tanks were manufactured from 2 mm stainless steel plates again by Murat Aydın.

Contrary to all our doubts and fears, the tanks fit in place perfectly and were incorporated with the boat’s hull.

After building the cabin sole over them with plywood, our carpenter was able to start from scratch building the galley, cupboards, drawers and beds inside.

We had many heated discussions about how to place the galley, the chart table and the beds so that I with my 188 cm height would be able to sleep comfortably.

In the end, we were able to fit everything in accordance with the Golden Globe Race rules.

We could even place a second fridge and solid teak table for the living area, and I installed our old Reflex stove from Keyif in the cabin.

The mast came with delays from France and some of the shrouds were missing, but we managed. The sails are being made.

Although the original wooden bowsprit seemed very sturdy, we decided to replace it with an aluminium one because we did not trust the fifty year old wood.

Our engineer friend Çağlar prepared 3D technical drawings of the new bowsprit to include every detail. It was constructed from 10 mm aluminium plate by another friend Murat Aydın, in Tuzla, Istanbul.

The propeller shaft was renewed and a folding propeller from our earlier boat Keyif was installed.

The original rudder blade was sandblasted, strengthened, and covered with fibreglass.

In the meantime, I was adamant on installing a hydro-generator that could be lifted up from the water when not in use.

Can had made a vertical tunnel for this type of hydro-generator for Keyif, which we used successfully for many ocean passages.

Now he prepared one for HelpDisabledChildren, so we could install our new Remoran hydro-generator.

A second water towed generator, windvane, emergency rudder were also designed and installed.

The frame of the dodger was difficult to construct because 55 years ago, when the Endurance 35 was designed, the idea did not exist.

As there was no proper base, our senior welder Doğan had to invent it from scratch.

Cabin floors, cockpit floor and seats were all covered with synthetic teak.

Our welder Ibrahim manufactured the pulpit, push-pit, stanchions, holding rails for the cabin top and the companionway and the ladder on the transom.

Our canvas-makers, İbrahim and Sinan, prepared the cushions for the beds, seats and lee cloths inside as well as the cockpit cushions, and the spray hood.

I now have to plan the food and medical supplies that I will get from Turkiye, as well as clothing, bedding, and other details.

After the trial sails, in March, I will sail from Turkiye to Gibraltar with my partner and team manager Nadire, then leave her in Gibraltar to do the 4000 mile solo qualification sail before sailing back to Les Sables d’Olonne.

Taking on ‘the Loneliest Race in the World’

I am really looking forward to being out there again on the blue sea, free from all the worries of land.

Still, solo circumnavigation is a very lonely affair.

Most of my sailor friends, who are like older brothers, supported me by saying, ‘You would be the only one among us who can do such a thing.’

My wife and children understand and respect my decision, but I do worry about losing contact with my family and something happening to any of them while I am away.

If I’m racing to win, it’s because it means getting home to them more quickly.

I always sailed, rowed, and fished with friends. Now I will be facing an indifferent ocean, in relentless winds, in the remotest places on earth all by myself.

Some have said I am crazy, but at the finish, I will have lived the greatest adventure a human being can hope to achieve.

Quick facts: Selim Yalcin / HelpDisabledChildren (Endurance 35)

Sail Plan? 

Mainsail, light genoa, genoa, staysail, spinnaker, gennaker.

I will be going with mainsail and genoa wing on wing when I can. For light airs I will have a spinnaker and a gennaker. For stronger weather I will have a staysail and a storm jib.

Furler or hank on?

Furler, for sure.

Self-steering set up?

We have used a Windpilot Pacific for 13 years on our own sailboat. We sailed with this windvane about 90.000 miles, we are well used to it, so we installed it on HelpDisabledChildren.

Antifouling?

We applied Coppercoat.

Sailing inspirations?

Sait Deniz, my rowing coach, a dockyard worker and dedicated rower who passed away tragically at the age of 29.

Turan Karahasan, my uncle who died at sea during a northerly storm in the Marmara Sea when he was 18.

Sinan Nayman, my cousin who died at sea on his 18th birthday before my eyes.

Sadun Boro, the first circumnavigator of Turkiye, who sailed around the world with his wife Oda and his cat Miço (shipboy) from 1965 to 1968 on the wooden ketch Kismet that was built in Istanbul partly by himself.

Mehmet Aksiray, seaman, fisherman, sailor, now 99 years old, who taught me how to sail and fish on the Bosphorus.

I was also inspired by the authors Beryl & Miles Smeeton, who pitchpoled on the way to Cape Horn twice yet continued to sail lifelong.

Vito Dumas, who wrote about sailing alone in the Roaring Forties; Hal & Margaret Roth, the pioneer cruising couple, with him later joining the BOC challenge and her supporting.

James Baldwin, with his long voyages in the Pacific with his modest boat Atom.

We also had the chance to meet in New Zealand one of our heroes in person: Alvah Simon, the author of North to the Night.

Three unexpected items you’ll take onboard: 

1. Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi’s book of poems, Mesnevi. These are stories written in the 13th century, teaching the Sufi philosophy about life, and quite difficult to understand. I read it when I was a young man. This period of solitude will allow me to reread it and to understand it better
2. Baklava, the famous Turkish dessert, and Turkish coffee with the traditional copper pot ‘cezve’ to cook it
3. Some of my favorite books to read in good weather: Cien Anos de Soledad of Gabrial Garcia Marquez and Jean Luc van den Heede’s Le Derniere Loup de Mer, in their original languages. I believe that learning a language is crucial to understand a people and a culture and am already fluent in German & English, but I am trying to improve my Spanish & French.

Article has been edited for clarity. 

 

 

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The post The Med-made sailor with a mission to help disabled children: Golden Globe Race skipper Dr. Selim Yalcin in his own words appeared first on Yachting Monthly.