Shipyards

As long as there were ships in history, there were services given to those ships by someone else. Sometimes it was shipowners themselves, sometimes it was historical places professionalized to build and repair ships such as cities or ports. In modern times, shipyards are places to offer services mostly for building and repairing ships. Here are some shipyards and information about them.

ART Shipyard

Art Shipyard, under the Besiktas Group, which is an established maritime company in the ship repair industry, was established in 2019. The shipyard itself is located in Tuzla, Istanbul. Services that can be offered by the shipyard include are mostly around ship repairing such as blasting and painting, steel & pipe renewal, retrofitting of ballast water treatment system and exhaust gas scrubber systems, electrical and mechanical maintenance services.

There are 2 docks in ART Shipyard. One of the floating docks of Art Shipyard has dimensions of 230 m x 38,2 m which is being one of the widest Panamax floating docks in Turkey while another one has dimensions of 180m x 34,5m as servicing to the Handymax vessels. In the same facility, there are Piping, Outfitting, Electrical, Steel and Mechanic workshops which shipyard carry out anchor windlass winches, mooring winches and valves overhauling et cetera. Moreover, ART Shipyard has two jetties providing more than 600 meters of lay-by berth capacity equipped with high-capacity cranes up to 400 tons. Same workshop organization exists in the facility including pipe steel outfitting and mechanical as well as CNC machining and shop priming workshops. 

The current Chairman of the board of directors of the Besiktas Group, which established the shipyard is Yavuz Kalkavan. At the news of the ART Shipyard’s establishment, Mr. Kalkavan said that ‘Shipyard will be opening 500 new employment’.

TK Tuzla Shipyard

Located in Tuzla, Istanbul, with more than 20 years of experience in the business, TK Tuzla Shipyard, as one of the largest shipyards in Turkey, provides drydocking, repair, and conversion services. 

The shipyard has one VLCC size floating dock (with dimensions of 350 x 65 meters) with a lifting capacity of 109.000 tons. For berthing and afloat repairs, TK Tuzla Shipyard has a length capacity of 1000 meters. Like one for each of 30 and 100 tons, the shipyard has 2 floating cranes. Drydock of the shipyard has 86 nozzles in its blasting capacity. Apart from that, there are 5 workshops in the shipyard for the services like 

• Steel cutting
• Machinery
• Prefabrication works.  

Current Chairman of TK Tuzla Shipyard is Murat Kıran.

​​​​​​GEMAK Shipyard

Dated back to 1969 as a minor yard in Golden Horn, GEMAK Shipyard offers services like ship repairing, newbuilding, and conversion. Apart from these services to ships, GEMAK Shipyard offers services for semi-submerged and jack-up oil platforms, FPSO and FSO ships, PSV, AHT ships, and offshore structures in the offshore industry.

GEMAK has 3 shipyards, named GEMAK Tuzla, GEMAK Altinova, GEMAK TGE. While GEMAK Tuzla offers the only ship repairing and conversion services, the other 2 shipyards offer all three services to ships (repairing, newbuilding, and conversion). 

For shipbuilding services, 2 shipyards have in total of 200m x 43,5m semi-wet slipway (with a floating dock gate), 300 tons lifting capacity over the slipway, 300m x 53m dry dock (with floating dock gate), 470 tons lifting capacity over the dry dock, 56.000 m2 pre-fabrication area for actions like cutting, blending, edge preparation and minor assembly works. 160.000 m2 block fabrication and assembly area with 3.500 tons of steel fabrication capacity per month.

For services of ship repairing and conversion, 3 shipyards of GEMAK have 3 drydocks for Capesize, Panamax, and Handysize vessels as one for each (lengths ranging from 200 m to 300m). Panamax and Handysize drydocks are floating dock. Shipyards also have one self-propelled floating crane SWL weighted 100 tons, length of wet berths 2000 m in total, 45 cranes operating at the shore side.

Within its areas, GEMAK has a total workforce of 3370 people. The current CEO of the GEMAK Group is Birol Üner.

DESAN Shipyard

Located in Tuzla, Istanbul, established in 1974, DESAN Shipyard offers services such as shipbuilding, repair, and conversion with its one shipyard. Services can be given to the type of vessels like:

• Commercial Vessels
• Jack Up Platforms
• Offshore Vessel
• Navy Vessels
• Tugboats
• Naval Ships
• Bargers
• Special Purpose Vessels Engineering

Also, only ship repair and conversion services can be given to oil tankers and yachts.

In its only shipyard in Tuzla, DESAN shipyard has a total shipyard area of 59000m2. The shipyard also has 3 floating docks lengths ranged from 145 m to 234 m which can be reached to post Panama size, 4 berths (3 of 175 m, 1 of 225 m in length). Cranes with options like overhead (which can be used in closed ship construction hall), gantry, portal, jib and, mobile with carrying weight ranged from 10T to 100T.

Desan Shipyard owned by Kaptanoğlu Shipping. Cenk Ismail Kaptanoğlu leads the shipyard and shipping business of the company as the third generation of the family.

Tersan Shipyard

Belonging to the group of companies of Tersan, the shipyard acquired by the Tersan group at the shipyard area with a floating dock in Istanbul’s Tuzla shipyard’s region in 1998 started group’s shipyard activities from this year. Tersan Shipyard offers services like ship repair, maintenance, overhaul, and ship docking. 

Repair actions stay at Tuzla, while the shipyard’s ship building activities move to Yalova. With floating docks lengths varies from 130 to 280 meters shipyard can offer services to wide variations of vessels like: 

• Offshore supply vessels, 
• Fishing vessels, 
• Ferries, 
• Stainless steel tankers, 
• Tugboats. 

Tersan Shipyard also has a slipway with dimensions are 200 meters in length and 56,5 meters in width. The design of the slipway is enabling for two ships to be built side by side. Also, the shipyard has two main gantry cranes with a capacity of 550 tons and 400 tons respectively, 2 closed workshops for completing services like CNC plasma cutting, bending, forming, panel, unit and block productions, two warehouses, a painting workshop equipped with grit handling and conveyor systems as well as condition control systems (humidity and temperature) in order to provide uninterrupted progress of the production despite any weather condition outside and a piping workshop.

The shipyard has also 40 nozzles blasting capacity at drydock for services like blasting and painting. The shipyard offers jobs up to 4000 people according to an interview in 2019. 

The Chairman of the board of Tersan Shipyard is Nurettin Aksu.

HIDRODINAMIK Shipyard

Established in 1975 in Rumeli Kavağı, then moved to Tuzla, Istanbul in 1980, which is the current shipyard since then. HIDRODINAMIK Shipyard offers services like ship repair and maintenance, ship conversion, rental services of equipment, and shipbuilding in their shipyard in Tuzla.

HIDRODINAMIK Shipyard’s facilities have an outdoor area of 20000m2 and an indoor area of 5000m2 which completes an area of 25000 m2 in total. The shipyard has 3 railway docks with lengths ranging from 95 m to 140 m which has lifting capacities from 1200 ton to 3000 ton and cranes (one 5 tons, four 10 tons). Moreover, the shipyard has a floating dock with a length of 130 m with a lifting capacity of 3000 tons, and 2 cranes (5 tons). Forgiving services to docked and floating ships, the shipyard has two floating cranes with capacities of 35MT and 4MT. HIDRODINAMIK Shipyard also has workshops for offering services such as mechanical, electric, and electronic, outfitting, pipe, steel fabrication.

The company’s current Chairwoman of the Board is Asuman Özer,

KUZEY STAR Shipyard

Established under the TEKNOMARIN Marine Technical Services, KUZEY STAR Shipyard created its shipyard operations by acquiring a shipyard in Yalova in 2013. After that, the company also acquired a shipyard in Tuzla, Istanbul. KUZEY STAR Shipyards are giving services of shipbuilding, ship repair and conversion. Construction projects that can be given by the shipyard are commercial ships, platform support ships, cruise ships, barge, yacht, river navigation boats, river restaurant boats.

KUZEY STAR Shipyard has 2 docks with lengths of 196 m and 226 m which can offer services up to Panamax type vessels with the total pier length of 2000 m, shipyard also has 75-ton capacity crane. Shipyard also has total of four slipways, 3 in Tuzla and 1 in Yalova, which lengths ranged from 120m to 200m with 100 personnel are able to work for the construction shipyards.

KUZEY STAR Shipyard’s current chairman of board is Tuncay İmral.

SANMAR Shipyard

With 2 shipyards in its hands, one in Tuzla and one in Yalova SANMAR is specifically in the business for production tugboats and providing services for vessels like pilot boats and mooring boats and tugboats. Custom-built shipyards bought by the company in 2011 and 2015 but incorporated the SANMAR, a company dated back to 1976. 

In Tuzla, the company’s purpose-built tug building yard has a 144m x 16m x 23m clear height construction hall. With such a production area, SANMAR’s Tuzla Shipyard allows six tugs to be constructed at any one time. With total areas of 5481m2 and 4560 tons of steel processing capacity, and shipyard’s vastly experienced team which has been building tugs for international buyers since 1990.

As proclaimed by the company as the ‘greenest’ shipyard in Turkey, Yalova Shipyard has a 40-minute drive away from the main Tuzla shipyard. This shipyard’s dock developed not only for a floating dock but also for the launching of newly built vessels with its tools. Apart from that, the dock in Yalova has a pontoon of 4 m, an inner beam of 28 m, and a length of 83.80 m with lifting abilities up to 3000 tons. At its positioning, the dock can have a possible extension to 120 m and reach a lifting capacity of 5000 tons, if required. 

Under the shipyard’s control, there is a steel workshop also in Tuzla’s Orhanli OSB Area which has a 5km distance from the SANMAR Tuzla Shipyard. Constructions are made there and moved to the shipyard for final assembly and fitting of the earlier constructed units. In a land over 5000 m2, the workshop has a production hall, support facility, and open storage area with winches which have a total lifting capacity of 64 tonnes

Chairman of the board of the SANMAR is also a co-founder of the company, Osman Gürün. 

RMK Shipyard

Firstly, established in 1974 by Profolio Holding in Golden Horn, acquired by Koç Holding in 1997. Currently has a shipyard in Tuzla, RMK Shipyard offers ship building, ship repair, conversion and maintenance services to commercial ships, naval ships and yachts.

Shipyard has a total land area of 95243m2. There is a pier with length of 200m. There are two slipways in shipyard with sizes of:

• 170m x 60m
• 60m x 15m which is a mobile slipway for yachts.

There are working halls for block painting, piping, outfitting and machining, CNC cutting, and pressing. The annual steel processing capacity of the RMK Shipyard is 6069 tons.

Current General Manager of the RMK Marine is Adnan Nefesoğlu.

DENTAS Shipyard

As working under Armador Ship Management, which was established in 1959, DENTAS Shipyard offers services for ship building, ship repair and maintenance areas. Shipyard is located in Tuzla. 

DENTAS Shipyard has a total area of 18000m2. There is a steel workshop in the shipyard which helps to steel processing capacity of 9000 tons per year. With that, the shipyard has a floating dock with a length of 144,2m and a width of 21,78m. Several cranes help as lifting equipment in the shipyard, with capacities ranging from 6 tons to 120 tons. There is one slideway in the shipyard. Dimensions of the slideway are 145m x 25m.

The current Chairman of the Board of DENTAS Shipyard is Ebru Paylan Şenkaya.

GISAN Shipyard

In 1960, GISAN Shipyard’s origins were established in Golden Horn. Relocation to Tuzla happened in 1982 and activities are in Tuzla since then. Services provided by GISAN Shipyard are shipbuilding, repair, conversion and maintenance.

Total area of the shipyard is 18066m2 and the shipyard has a steel processing capacity of 15000 tons per year. Shipyard has a pier length of 150m and a draft of 8m. The floating dock of the GISAN Shipyard has a dimension of 155,48m x 32m. Two slipways of the shipyard have a length of 150m and 130m and a width of 23m and 20m, respectively. Forklifts, cherry pickers and cranes are in shipyard for lifting actions. Working areas also have press machines, CNC, compressors, painting machines.

Current owner of the GISAN Shipyard is Ismail Oyar.

TORLAK Shipyard

Established in 1970, in Golden Horn, Istanbul, TORLAK Shipyard then moved their activities to Tuzla in 1983. Shipyard provides services like docking and repairing, newbuilding of vessels. Newbuilding can be carried out for merchant and offshore vessels by the shipyard.

Within its total area of 23036m2, TORLAK Shipyard has yearly capacity for steel processing of 9450 tonnes. Total berthing capacity of 480m can be provided by two-sided pier with length of 140m and 200m long of alongside floating dock. Quay of the shipyard has a length of 150m with draft of 9m. There are two slipways in the shipyard with dimensions of:

• 117m x 22,1m
• 97m x 15m

Owner of the shipyard is Durmuşali Torlak.

CEKSAN Shipyard

Foundations of the CEKSAN Shipyard is dated back to 1960 in Golden Horn, Istanbul with services like construction and maintenance of wooden and steel ships which are mostly small ones. With relocation to Tuzla in 1986, CEKSAN Shipyard’s newbuilding, ship repairing, and maintenance services are provided from there since then.

Within the shipyard’s facilities with a total area of 17000m2, CEKSAN Shipyard has a floating dock with sizes of 145m in length and 21.5 width. With the length of 150m and draft of 8m, shipyard has its own pier. Two slipways with

• 132m x 26,3m
• 96,23m x19,2m

Workshops have CNC plasma cutting machines, automated welding machines, bending and drilling machines which can carry out services like engine overhauling, shaft and propeller works, tank coating, pipe works, cleaning, SA-3 grid blasting, 1000 bars water blasting, painting, stainless steel works, aluminium works, insulation work and carpenter works. Cranes of the shipyard have capacities ranged from 5 to 100 tonnes.

Current Chairman of the board is Başaran Bayrak.

SEDEF Shipyard

From the establishment in 1972, SEDEF Shipyard started their operations in Gebze. Shipyard’s current location is Tuzla since 1990. Also, Turkon Holding, which is an experienced company with dates back to 1954, is the parent company of the SEDEF Shipyard since 2000. Build, repair and maintain services of vessels can be carry out by the shipyard. SEDEF Shipyard can offer their services to kind of vessels like:

• Commercial ships
• Fishing ships
• Offshore vessels
• Ferries
• Navy ships

With the total shipyard area of 270000m2, which makes the shipyard the biggest private shipyard in country, working areas can give the capacity for steel working 100000 tons per annum. SEDEF Shipyard has one drydock and one slipway with dimensions of:

• Drydock: 310m x 50m with draft of 8.3m
• Slipway: 250m x 41.2m

Drydock and slipway is supported by large amount of portal, jib, overhead and gantry cranes with weight capacities ranged from 5 to 300 tonnes. Quay of the shipyard has a length of 300m. With all of that, SEDEF Shipyard has an annual capacity for newbuilding of 600000DWT in total.

Current Chairman of the Executive Board of the SEDEF Shipyard is Nevzat Kalkavan.