Dearsan delivers Queen Yaz, a warship yard's first 50m yacht

A patrol-boat builder's first superyacht

Dearsan was founded in 1980 at Tuzla, on the Sea of Marmara, and built commercial vessels for its first 27 years: ocean-going tugs, chemical and oil tankers, fast passenger ferries and cargo ships. In 2007 it became the first privately owned Turkish shipyard to design and build a warship, winning the tender for 16 of the 57-metre Tuzla-class patrol vessels for the Turkish navy. It went on to become the first Turkish yard to export a warship, building ten more Tuzla-class hulls for the Turkmen navy at a yard it established in Turkmenistan. More than 120 commercial and military vessels have left its slipways since.

None of that history included a private yacht until Queen Yaz. Construction started in 2024, with the steel hull and aluminium superstructure complete by January 2025. The yacht launched in June 2026 and went through sea trials over the following weeks; Boat International reported the handover on 10 August 2026. Roughly 22 months from steel-cutting to a delivered flagship is a fast, disciplined build for any yard's first yacht, and it reads as the naval side's production culture carried straight over to a civilian hull.

The numbers behind the flagship

Queen Yaz runs 50.2 metres overall on an 8.96-metre beam and a 2.45-metre draft, at 488 gross tons. That figure is not incidental: staying under the 500 GT line keeps the yacht clear of the stricter commercial manning and tonnage-related rules that several flag states apply above that threshold, which simplifies crewing and running costs for whoever takes her on. The hull is steel, the superstructure aluminium, decks are teak, and she is finished in a navy-blue hull colour with a displacement hull form built for range and comfort rather than outright speed.

Power comes from twin Caterpillar C32 diesels, rated at 1,622hp (1,210kW) each for a combined 3,244hp (2,420kW), driving twin screws. What is missing is any published top speed, cruising speed or range figure - from Dearsan, from Red Yacht Design or from Boat International's own delivery report. Established yards routinely publish sea-trial numbers within days of a handover; their absence here is not evidence of a problem, but it is a gap a serious buyer should expect Dearsan to close before ordering a sister ship.

Red Yacht Design's biggest brief yet

Both the exterior and interior are the work of Red Yacht Design, a nine-year-old studio founded in 2017 in Istanbul, with a second base in London, by architect Cana Gokhan and naval architect Fatih Surekli. Surekli trained as a naval architect at Yildiz Technical University and spent eleven years working for established yards before starting the studio. It now carries 14 active projects between 16 and 64 metres, including the 40.8-metre Aisha, launched at Turkey's Anadolu Shipyard in March 2026 and delivered in July 2026, and a high-profile Heesen refit. Naval architecture on Queen Yaz was handled separately, by the Istanbul firm Milimetriq.

Queen Yaz is the largest project the studio has carried from brief to delivery. Its stated aim, in managing director Fatih Surekli's words, was a yacht that 'embodies sophistication' while built around outdoor living: the sundeck is configured as the main social space with a jacuzzi, bar and dining area, and the swim platform carries a U-shaped sofa and sun loungers behind bulwarks that unfold to add extra deck space at anchor. Dearsan chief executive Murat Gordi called the yacht 'a testament to our team's passion and expertise' at handover.

Accommodation, and what is not published

Queen Yaz sleeps 10 guests across five cabins - one owner's suite and four guest cabins. Crew capacity has not been disclosed by any source checked for this story, which is unusual for a delivery announcement on a yacht this size; a 50-metre yacht in regular use needs a substantial full-time crew, and the gap is one a prospective buyer for a second Dearsan hull would want closed early. No price has been published, no owner or buyer has been named, and nothing indicates whether Queen Yaz will enter charter or stay in private use.

None of that is unusual for a yard's very first yacht - Dearsan has no incentive yet to publish pricing that would anchor negotiations on its next build, and a first owner may simply prefer privacy. But it does mean the useful comparison is not 'Queen Yaz versus a similar 50-metre Italian yacht,' which would need a price on both sides, but 'Dearsan versus the pack of established Turkish builders already working at this size' - where Queen Yaz genuinely does supply hard, checkable facts for the first time.

What a new entrant means for the market

Turkey is already established among the world's leading superyacht-producing nations by order-book volume, tracked annually in Boat International's Global Order Book, with builders including Bilgin Yachts, Turquoise Yachts, Numarine and Mengi Yay all delivering above 50 metres. Bilgin has recently expanded its hull-building shed at Yalova with additional slots, a sign the country's capacity is still growing rather than plateauing. Turkish yards are widely reported to build at lower prices than equivalent Western European ones, though neither side publishes figures that make the comparison exact.

A naval and patrol-boat specialist adding a credible 50-metre flagship to that field, on a roughly two-year build cycle and without publicised delays, is a genuine data point rather than a rendering or a signed contract. For an owner or a broker sizing up where to place a new-build order outside the traditional Italian, Dutch and German yards, Dearsan has just converted itself from a name on a shortlist into a yard with one real, delivered hull to inspect.