We made it! We finally splashed!

[MV Caroline]

She's a beauty! How about a spec page?

 

[BluewaterN47]

Congratulations, Christine, on the launch of your new baby. Oh, the places you'll go!


Best wishes,


Milt & Judy Baker
Formerly @Bluewater Books & Charts
Formerly @River Reach

 

[88FuHwa]

A beautiful ship. Just hide it from Erdogan. Was she built from the ground up, I mean new hull and everything else? Did you have to import any accessories or main components? Just curious.
Dirk

 

[Art]

Wonderful boat!

 

[TrawlerBear]

Congratulations

What a beautiful design; sleek but honest and unpretentious. Wishing you thousands of miles of safe passage.

 

[whitmo]

So happy to see the Dashew FPB design lives on !! Cheers.

 

[ChristineKling]

A beautiful ship. Just hide it from Erdogan. Was she built from the ground up, I mean new hull and everything else? Did you have to import any accessories or main components? Just curious.
Dirk

Yes, she was built from the ground up here in Turkey. We are very pleased with their welding and with the CNC cut aluminum that we started with.

However, the second part of your question dealing with getting stuff in through Turkish Customs. Argghhh. That has been the worst part of this build. For example, right now the yard has run all the coax for the VHF and the AIS antennas as bare wire. No ends. I put together an order from Defender and I added a few extra Shakespeare ends for the spare parts division of Wayne's workshop. The order got flagged as being commercial. It's been stuck in Istanbul at Customs for over a month, and I think I'm going to lose it. UPS will return to sender. Four calls begging them to send me the paperwork and multiple emails and calls with UPS International. And that is just one shipment.

We had one shipment from McMaster-Carr where we ended up paying more to Customs than the total price of the goods.

And yet other times, stuff just sails through.

Don't get me wrong, I love Turkey. Just yesterday, the guys who work the big tugs tied up ahead of us brought us over a big hot homemade pizza - an extra. They are feeding a big group of guys and they were up at 4:00 am to take out a huge freighter, but the generosity here is amazing.

But Customs....... not so much love there.

 

[ChristineKling]

So happy to see the Dashew FPB design lives on !! Cheers.

Not quite!

We were certainly inspired by the FPB's, but our boat is not a Dashew design. It was designed by Dennis Harjamaa of Artnautica Yacht Design

Steve Dashew kept the hull design of his boats a guarded secret, so we will never claim that we benefitted from his designs. However, there are lots of ideas that he wrote about that we think were great ideas, and we incorporated them into our thinking.

But Dashew is not the only person who has been a fan of long slender motor vessels as opposed to the more portly trawlers. Dave Gerr has some designs that are long and slender, as does Michael Kasten.

 

[ChristineKling]

Congratulations, Christine, on the launch of your new baby. Oh, the places you'll go!


Best wishes,


Milt & Judy Baker
Formerly @Bluewater Books & Charts
Formerly @River Reach

Thanks so much Milt! I hope we will be able to have you and Judy aboard one day. We can introduce your Schip to our two sea dogs.

 

[cardude01]

How has the fall in the Turkish Lira impacted your build process? Was the build priced in Lira or dollars? Just wondering, not trying to be nosy.

Are people worried about a banking/economic collapse in Turkey after the recent fall in the Lira and rising inflation?

I’m just wondering how the currency fluctuation is impacting foreigners we living and doing business in Turkey. I’ve traveled to Turkey and have some US friends living there, and would like to go back some day.

 

[ChristineKling]

How has the fall in the Turkish Lira impacted your build process? Was the build priced in Lira or dollars? Just wondering, not trying to be nosy.

Are people worried about a banking/economic collapse in Turkey after the recent fall in the Lira and rising inflation?

I’m just wondering how the currency fluctuation is impacting foreigners we living and doing business in Turkey. I’ve traveled to Turkey and have some US friends living there, and would like to go back some day.

The Turkish Lira has been in flux longer than we have been here, so almost everything having to do with boats is priced in either USD or Euros. We did our contract in dollars. But even if you go into chandleries or marinas, nothing will be listed in TL.

We are somewhat insulated from news here. Because in spite of any best efforts, I still can't understand much Turkish, we don't watch local TV news or read newspapers. There are some English language online news sites and I am in several Ex-pat Facebook groups, so I get the gist of what's going on.

From my view, Turkey is an amazingly inexpensive place to live. We have been in a 3-bedroom apartment on the 9th floor, fully-furnished with a view of a sliver of the Med. When we arrived in 2017, the lira was at 3.6 to the dollar and we paid 1200TL per month for rent - or about $333. Today our rent has risen to 2800TL and with the lira at 7.9 that's about $354. I think the dollar has fallen in value as well. At any rate, our cost of living here has remained roughly the same - and much less than we would be paying in the US. High-speed Internet at the apartment is $20/month

But for the workers who are building our boat, the inflation has hit them hard along with the impacts of Covid on business in general. Most wages get adjusted to inflation, but not right away. We still see upper class Turks spending freely. The malls are crowded with folks shopping, and the Starbucks never has an empty table outside. But many restaurants did not survive the lockdowns and there are more people on the roadside trying to sell stuff to have money for food.

We love Turkey, but we do wish for a better economy for them. I think it will get worse before it gets better. Next year is the centennial of the founding of modern Turkey and a presidential election. Should be interesting.

 

[cardude01]

The Turkish Lira has been in flux longer than we have been here, so almost everything having to do with boats is priced in either USD or Euros. We did our contract in dollars. But even if you go into chandleries or marinas, nothing will be listed in TL.



We are somewhat insulated from news here. Because in spite of any best efforts, I still can't understand much Turkish, we don't watch local TV news or read newspapers. There are some English language online news sites and I am in several Ex-pat Facebook groups, so I get the gist of what's going on.



From my view, Turkey is an amazingly inexpensive place to live. We have been in a 3-bedroom apartment on the 9th floor, fully-furnished with a view of a sliver of the Med. When we arrived in 2017, the lira was at 3.6 to the dollar and we paid 1200TL per month for rent - or about $333. Today our rent has risen to 2800TL and with the lira at 7.9 that's about $354. I think the dollar has fallen in value as well. At any rate, our cost of living here has remained roughly the same - and much less than we would be paying in the US. High-speed Internet at the apartment is $20/month



But for the workers who are building our boat, the inflation has hit them hard along with the impacts of Covid on business in general. Most wages get adjusted to inflation, but not right away. We still see upper class Turks spending freely. The malls are crowded with folks shopping, and the Starbucks never has an empty table outside. But many restaurants did not survive the lockdowns and there are more people on the roadside trying to sell stuff to have money for food.



We love Turkey, but we do wish for a better economy for them. I think it will get worse before it gets better. Next year is the centennial of the founding of modern Turkey and a presidential election. Should be interesting.

Very interesting! Thanks for the local perspective.
That apartment for $350 per month and fast internet for $20 sounds amazing.

After the boat is finished do you anticipate ever getting back to Turkey? Our US friends who have been living there the past two years rave about it, but they are like you with dollar based incomes so not hurting. I’m a little worried about Erdogan and what he might do to retain power, and what the poor, desperate people will be subject to if the situation continues.

 

[BluewaterN47]

Sounds like you're living the dream, Christine. No wonder Turkey is so popular with cruisers!


And soon, we hope, you'll actually be CRUISING.



Godspeed,


Milt & Judy Baker, Nordhavn 47 Bluewater