The story of MY MARTI
She was never born to be a yacht.
She was born for duty.
In Germany in 1930, long before luxury became the language of yachting, a police boat was built to work. Her lines were shaped by function, her character by responsibility. She was not created to be admired from a marina. She was created to endure.
Her life later crossed borders when she became one of a series of vessels donated to the Turkish state. With that passage, she entered another maritime world and became part of Türkiye’s developing industrial life at sea. She was no longer merely a German-built working boat. She had begun to gather a second identity.
Then, in 1972, Oyman Sayer saw something in her that could not be measured by age or specification. He acquired her at a Turkish government auction and opened the door to an extraordinary transformation. At Bilal Kayacan Shipyard in Beykoz, the working vessel passed through Istanbul’s traditional culture of maritime craftsmanship - the same wider circle of skill and knowledge associated with Nazenin I, Rahmi Koç’s first yacht.
Beykoz did not erase what she had been. It gave her past a new form. The strength of a police boat remained beneath the character of a private vessel; industrial purpose began to live alongside elegance. Her transformation was not a clean break from history, but another layer added to it.
And still, her working life was not over. During the years that followed, she served as a crew boat in TPAO drilling operations. She carried people, purpose and the memory of Türkiye’s maritime-industrial development. Only later did she evolve into the private yacht we know today.
Most yachts are defined by the day they leave the shipyard. MY MARTI is defined by everything that happened afterwards. Germany. State service. The 1972 auction. Beykoz. TPAO. Private life. Each chapter remains present in her, not as decoration, but as identity.
“I bought MARTI for precisely this reason.”Her present owner, after recognising the meaning carried by her story
That confession reveals the real value of MY MARTI. She was not chosen in spite of her past; she was chosen because of it. Her owner did not simply acquire a yacht. He recognised a living object that carries Türkiye’s early maritime-industrial culture, Bosphorus craftsmanship and nearly a century of transformation.
This is why MY MARTI cannot be understood through metres, cabins, engine hours or consumption alone. Those facts matter, but they are not her soul. Her next owner will not be searching for the newest object in the harbour. That person will be searching for provenance, atmosphere, memory and authentic character.
MY MARTI is not for everyone. But for the person who understands what she represents, she is far more than a classic yacht. She is a piece of living maritime history - waiting not simply to be purchased, but to be discovered, understood and carried into her next chapter.
