The History of Turquoise 29

Kalyoncu Boatyard having specialized itself mainly in refit projects with elaborate interiors in the past, manufactured its first 100 % own production, Turquoise 29.

The owner of the yard Mehmet Kalyoncu, a great fan of the classic boats of the 1930's, asked his long time friend Murat Ertuğ to design a boat with the classic sleek lines of the launches from the East Coast-USA. The boat, however should' nt be a copy of the existing designs, but represent something " unique " in the lines to be associated with the yard. Many sketches have been drawn, some 3D renderings completed, but both parties, the designer and the client have been not satisfied with the results till they found something, which was really special to be inspired of a ship' s boat, which was brought to the yard for repair, aiming the decoration of a companies vast production ground. The boat was not a usual ship's boat, but represented one of the very rare species of that sort, having the lines of a whale boat with a gracious bow. They fell in love with the boat. The lines of upper part of the hull, especially towards the bow have been what they have been looking for. Blending those lines with the lines of a round bilge launch, again after many sketches and 3d s, the Turquoise' s first hull have been created, but only as a computer image. The design brief asked further, that the boat should have a interior to accommodate a small family as a weekender, having enough open space for fishing and picnic, good economical cruise speed, good stability, if possible very good sea keeping abilities and should be good at harbor maneuvers. The hull had to be optimized around those criteria, so that it took another month till the design was ready to be manufactured. Since the boat has been designed with the aim of serial production, GRP has been chosen for the building material. The frames taken from the 3D design in full scale, cut by CNC router and the plug for the mould have been created with less than 1 mm tolerances.

The scantlings has been calculated to the CE Norms "ISO 12215", the hull being solid fiberglass, deck and superstructure foam sandwich construction. The boat has a GRP stringer and frame system filled with PU foam and the liner is connected to the hull through lamination.

Only the best materials have been chosen for the production and 5 months later the prototype, fully fitted out, was ready for the sea trials. The sea trials showed that everything was as calculated at the design stage, in some aspects, even better than the expectations.

Designers Comment

It was the wish of the builder that the boat should have classical lines, so the beautiful sleek shape of the 1930’s launches has been taken to design the hull. Below waterline the lines are very sharp forward with a narrow and slightly hollow entry transferring to U sections towards the transom. The underwater body has been designed around a maximum displacement of 3 tons, so it is lighter than the original launches of 1930’s. The boat has a skeg shape keel damping the roll motion. With a power of 100 +HP the boat reaches easily semi displacement speeds beyond 12 knots and a top speed of 14 knots. is possible. The sea keeping abilities have been exceptional during the test drive.

Murat Ertug