Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Türkiye, loved big yachts. Just before he died in 1938, he enjoyed several outings on the Turkish presidential ship Savarona, one of the most luxurious yachts in the world at that time. She became known as “Ataturk’s yacht” and can still be spotted cruising the local waters from time to time. Recent guests have included President Erdogan, the Sultan of Brunai, and several international celebrities and jet-setters.

p/c Doug Bull, Flickr

MV Savarona

The MV Savarona was designed by Gibbs & Cox and built by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg for the wealthy American heiress Emily Roebling, the granddaughter of the engineer behind the Brooklyn Bridge. She was called Savarona after an African swan found in the Indian Ocean, and she was the longest yacht in the world, measuring 136 m (446 ft). Savarona cost over 4 million U.S. dollars to build and was then sold to the Turkish Government in March 1938, just a few months before the death of Ataturk, Türkiye’s first president.

Emily Roebling and her husband Richard Cadwalader commissioned five yachts, and Savarona was the last. All of the Cadwalader yachts were spectacular. The second, Sequoia II, was also used as a presidential yacht by the Americans from 1931 to 1977. Still, Savarona attracted the most attention, so much so that the German sci-fi film Gold used Savarona as a set in 1933. She went on to be described as “probably the most sumptuously fitted yacht afloat” by Janes Fighting Ships in 1949.

p/c Wikipedia

Savarona, the Turkish Presidential Yacht

The Turkish Government acquired Savarona in 1938 and gifted it to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who spent just six weeks onboard before he died. Following Ataturk’s death and throughout World War II, she remained idle until she was converted into the training ship Gunes Dil in 1951. She went on to tour many countries until a fire almost destroyed her at the Turkish Naval Academy in October 1979. For ten years, she lay abandoned until Kahraman Sadikoglu, a wealthy Turkish businessman, agreed to charter her for 49 years to keep Ataturk’s memory alive. He scrapped the old steam turbines in favour of the new Catapillar diesel engines and employed a designer to refurbish Savarona at a cost of over $45 million. Savarona again hit the waters as a high-end luxury charter yacht for use by wealthy private clients and celebrities.

p/c Wikipedia

The newly designed Savarona could sleep 34 VIP guests in 17 luxury suites. Highlights included a beautiful 86 m feature brass staircase based on the original design, a colossal dining/banquet room, a Turkish Bath and fitness facilities, a cinema, infirmary, swimming pool and a helipad. The water sports facilities were also superb and included diving, windsurfing and sailing gear. Savarona was the epitome of style and elegance, so attracted many famous passengers; Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Juan Carlos the King of Spain, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Tom Cruise, Valentino and Sharon Stone, to name but a few.

The commercial charter of Savarona worked well for some time until a media scandal in 2010 suggested she had been used for wild parties where underage girls and prostitutes were present. The hype surrounding the allegations led the Turkish Government to rescind Sadikoglu’s contract and ultimately take back control of Savarona. She then returned for official government use in 2014, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held his first official reception on the ship in March 2015 with his guest Bakir Izetbegovic, the Bosnian politician.