......History of Gulets
"He that will not sail till all dangers are over must not be put to sea."--Thomas Fuller (1608 -1661)

Author : Dina STREET ( Zephyria Yachting)

What, exactly, is a gulet?

The authoritative definition of gulet is:

" A two-masted, lightly rigged sailing vessel, smaller than a brig, with a fully rigged foremast with square sails and the mainmast with gaff-rigged mainsail."(1)

However, contemporary usage amongst the Turkish sailing community differs: A gulet is a two-masted, ketch or schooner-rigged yacht with widely varying sail plans and characterized by a wide rounded stern.

Precise origins of the use of the word gulet in present-day Turkish are unclear, although French references to 'goulettes' can be found in the 18th century. In Turkish, it does not appear to be widely used until the latter part of the 20th century with the advent of large-scale tourism. The term gulet, (variants include gulette, goulette, and guletta) also began to include other Turkish wooden boats of similar design, two of which are described below.
 

It is possible that the Turkish adoption of the word gulet came from the Venetian galiota. A heavy infiltration of nautical terms from Greek and Italian languages into Turkish is suggested in the Lingua Franca in the Levant: Turkish Nautical Terms of Greek and Italian Origin, which provides a very complete etymology of the term galiota and suggests that this may be a 'galleon of freighter shape.' It also finds reference to a 'warship with 19 to 24 rowing banks' and that galiota may be a diminutive of galea, a word dating back to the 12th century as a description of various types of ships until the 18th century.

After the Ottoman Empire's losses of World War I, Marmaris was occupied by Italian military forces for several years. Relations between the Italian soldiers and Marmaris residents were peaceful and it can be assumed that local people were exposed to some variants of Italian vocabulary, but to conclude that the Turkish use of 'gulet' stemmed from these years is not possible. It is, however, an interesting theory for lack of other explanations, while I continue researching further possibilities.

And what is an Ayna Kic?

An ayna kic is similar to a gulet but has a squared off stern. The primary advantage over a gulet is to the crew and passengers in the form of increased cabin space with an aft master cabin or separate crew quarters. There has been a significant increase in the demand for building ayna kics due to tourism and the market for charters and Blue Voyages, but sailing purists tend to opt for the gulet or tirhandil over the ayna kic. Translated, ayna kic literally means "paneled rear" or "mirror-assed", depending on the preferred interpretation.

And the elusive tirhandil?

A tirhandil is the centuries-old workhorse of the Mediterranean and is similar to its cousin, the caique, and the Greek transport vessel called perama. The Greek equivalent of tirhandil is trechenderi.

The Lingua Franca in the Levant defines tirhandil as a:

1. 'sternpost', 2. a 'small, light boat' and 3. 'as a fishing boat of a certain type: a large boat, both beaklike ends of which are similar, with two masts, lateen sails, spritsail and foresail, which can be driven by oars in case of emergency and which is used with dragnets by the Greek and Italian fisherman'.

The translated definition of tirhandil from Kaptan Kilavuzu is as follows:

A sailing vessel with origins from the Marmaris area having two masts, a bow spirit and lateen sails. The vessel is beak-nosed with a scoop stern and ample interior capacity.

Because few references for tirhandil or were found, I also looked up caique. Miriam-Webster gives the entymology of caique as being originally Turkish, from kayik, and defines it as a "Levantine sailing vessel." (Istanbul caiques, smaller and lighter, were skiffs which used to traverse the Bosphorus as taxi transport for the local populace.)

While it has often been suggested that gulets evolved from tirhandils to utilize deck space in order to haul cargo from sponge diving expeditions, it seems that this may not have been the case. Peter Throckmorton, in The Lost Ships, writes of his explorations for shipwrecks along the coast of Marmaris, courtesy of the sponge divers familiar with the area:

 

Mandalinche was the first sponge boat that I had ever been aboard. Thirty-six feet long, she was double-ended and sloop-rigged. The hull was lovely, rather like the famous "Colin Archer" Norwegian fishing boats, but not so deep in the water...Kemal's boat was an aktarma, a variaton of the design [of tirhandil] which had been devloped in Kalymnos, the center of sponge diving in Greece, just across the channel from the Marmaris peninsula. An aktarma is very maneuverable, a quality necessary to a boat which never anchors while working, and which must keep up with the diver's movements on the bottom.

Because tirhandils, despite generally being the superior sailing vessel of the three, have less aft deck space for Blue Cruise voyages, they are not as frequently commissioned by local builders and thus remain elusive. Yet it is the tirhandil, more so than the gulet, which carries the most traditional elements of Aegean sailing boats of the last two millennium.

Next section: Gulets: Building from start to finish.