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.
