On 26 May the Armada Grossa left Zante with eighteen transport ships, sailing towards the Dardanelles Strait, and on 8 June dropped anchors south of Imbros.

[2] For two days Flangini tried to reach a favorable position, but the strong adverse winds forced him to give up and anchor in lee of Imbros at about 12pm on 12 June.

At 3:30pm fighting began in the Rear with 8 Ottoman ships attacking Colomba, Trionfo, flagship of Flangini's second in command, the Capitano delle Navi[3] Marcantonio Diedo, and San Lorenzo.

[7] At daybreak on the 14th, the Venetians, having kept on the starboard tack with the wind blowing NNW, were between Lemnos and Mount Athos, with the Ottoman fleet to windwards.

Flangini, hit at midday by a musket ball in the neck, fell unconscious and was at first believed dead, just as the nearly dismasted flagship of Hodja Ibrahim Pasha was towed out of the battle line by two galiots.

[9] At 2:30 pm, after 5 hours of fighting, the Ottoman fleet withdrew towards Lemnos with 6 ships more or less dismasted and the Venetians, left without orders, lost an opportunity of going about and getting the wind gauge, and instead retired to Thermia.

[10][N 2] The following day, the Venetian fleet lay becalmed, and on the 18th Flangini recovered well enough – or Diedo ultimately took command, the situation is unclear – to set sail for repairs at Skyros or Andros, but the wind that blew hard from north made the weather so bad that it was not possible to bring up before reaching Thermia, 50 miles (80 km) south of Negropont, in the evening of 19 June.

Flangini, who asked to be brought on his ship's deck to direct the operation even in his dire condition, weighted anchors and formed a battle line, forcing the Ottomans to withdraw.

As a result, he retired to the south of Morea, where he hoped to find his superior in command, the Capitano Generale da Mar Andrea Pisani.

There he was joined, on 1 July, by the vessel Fortuna Guerriera and the allied squadron of seven Portuguese and two Maltese ships under the pontifical General Lieutenant Chevalier de Bellefontaine.