Istanbul Shipyard, founded at Golden Horn/ISTANBUL in 1455 by Sultan Mehmet (The Conqueror), had served for over 450 years as the main construction and repair shipyard of the Ottoman Navy. In 16th century, Istanbul Shipyard had the capacity of performing simultaneous construction of 200 warships and was known as one of the largest shipyards in the world at that time.



Istanbul Shipyard has closely followed technological developments from the very beginning. The first steam ship was constructed in Istanbul Shipyard in 1830 under a treaty signed between Ottoman State and US in 1830. In 1886,

2 submarines were assembled in Istanbul Shipyard as a joint project conducted in cooperation with the United Kingdom. After the 1st World War, the operation of Istanbul Shipyard was suspended, and existing tools and machinery were transferred to Golcuk/Kocaeli.



During the 2nd World War, Taskizak Naval Shipyard was founded on a part of Istanbul Shipyard area in 1941. Taskizak Naval Shipyard performed its high-qualified services especially in design, construction, maintenance and overhaul of naval vessels; basically fast small ships, mine hunting vessels, landing crafts and auxiliary ships until 1999.



Following the catastrophic Marmara Earthquake in 1999, Taskizak Naval Shipyard was transferred to Pendik Shipyard which was originally built to construct large size commercial vessels and medium size engines, and owned by the Turkish Shipbuilding Industries Inc. after the latter was taken over by Turkish Navy. Following the transfer, the new shipyard emerging on the roots of both Pendik Shipyard and Taskizak Naval Shipyard was named again as “Istanbul Naval Shipyard (INSY)” with the original historical name.



Shipyard, having been evaluated as the 2nd generation shipyard at the time of following the handover in 1999, gained the 3rd generation abilities in a short time upon the handover to Turkish Naval Forces Command (TURNAV). During the last years, INSY became one of the perfect shipyards in the world being the

4th generation shipyard.



With the fusion of the know how and technology of both Taskizak Naval Shipyard and former Pendik Shipyard, is now the largest shipyard in Turkey and capable of designing, constructing and maintaining all types of naval and commercial surface vessels up to 300 meter in length.



2. Industrial Capabilities of INSY



Yard layout of INSY was restructured to enable efficient naval shipbuilding and repair activities. Parts manufacturing, pre-assemblies and large block units are produced and outfitted indoors in order to achieve the highest quality, work safety and productivity. INSY has a total closed production area of about 139.750 m2 for hull construction and workshops.



With its wide range of industrial facilities, INSY has the capability of building ships up to 175.000 DWT.



INSY has 2 quays which are 400 m and 316 m in length. The quays provide a high docking capacity to INSY. There are 3 piers on the quay having 400 m length.



INSY, whose annual steel manufacturing capacity is thirty thousand tons with the sophisticated steel handling and processing facilities, has the highest annual steel manufacturing capacity in Turkey.



Shipyard has a dry dock (300 m in length and 70 m in width) which allows the flexible construction of vessels up to 175.000 DWT or 300 m in length. The dry dock has the biggest docking capacity of the region. INSY has also three floating docks. By these floating docks, INSY has the capability of docking ships up to 14.500 tons.



The dry dock can be divided into two separate areas by an intermediate gate enabling the simultaneous docking, production and assembly of several vessels or independent semi-tandem construction. The entire dry dock area and its hinterland are covered by a gantry crane.



INSY has a slipway near the dry dock with 202 m in length, 38 m in width and 80 m in wet length. The entire slipway area and its hinterland is covered by a gantry crane.



INSY, being a perfect shipyard in terms of lifting and transportation capacity, has different JIB cranes which have maximum 80 tons lifting and transportation capacity.



Transportation of blocks up to 600 tons is possible in INSY by operating two transportation platforms in synchronize, each of which has 300 tons transportation capacity.



The steel manufacturing shops, where high manufacturing quality is aimed, have 1 numerically controlled plasma cutting machine, 1 large size numerically controlled cutting machine and 4 optical cutting machines. High quality and accurate production techniques and equipments, including automatic welding are adopted into steel manufacturing.



INSY has the biggest numerically controlled portal boring tool/machine which is able to bore 3D in Turkey.



INSY serves itself and industry by its high capacity of shot blasting, scraping and primer painting sheet iron/profiles. INSY has different pressing and bending machines with high capacities which meet the needs of itself and industry. Quality of the service creates an increasing pressing and bending demands. Bending capacity of INSY is 20 tons daily.



INSY is capable of constructing, repairing and maintaining steel, aluminum, composite and wood structures.



INSY being one of the few non-magnetizable steel ship hull-producing shipyards in the world, has a non-magnetizable steel hull production shop. The non-magnetizable steel hull production shop is one of the prouder structure of INSY and also Turkey. The shop is equipped with modern technology for efficient high quality production.



The piers and the workshops are equipped with necessary infrastructure including fresh water, pressurized air and fire extinguishing systems. There exists a centrally distributed oxygen-acetylene system on the piers and in the workshops.



INSY has the capacity of producing different kinds of paints, oxygen-acetylene and galvanized steel plates to cover the annual needs of itself and industry in the region.



INSY has the capability of designing and manufacturing propellers weighing up to 2 tons in complex geometry and also the capability of pipe bending and manufacturing casting moulds in different size and shapes required for outfitting of a ship.



INSY has the highest design capability among the shipyards in Turkey. Regarding new shipbuilding, repair, alteration and modernization tasks of the shipyard, the design department has computer aided design (CAD) and manufacturing (CAM) capability by utilizing intergraph hardware and software systems.



3. Contribution of INSY to Turkish Defence Industry



INSY serves public association, native real and judicial people, civil sailing and the other production sectors in order to meet their needs by its idle capacity within Turkish Republic law numbered 3225.

The service can be repair, maintenance, manufacture and production, and also can be construction of a ships up to 175.000 DWT or 300 m in length (because of the restrictions on capabilities of INSY) under the mentioned law, if it is requested and there is an idle capacity.



INSY serves the needs of industry by using its idle capacity within the framework of the mentioned law about revolving fund.

In order to contribute to indigenous defence industry and to improve the naval ship building sector of indigenous defence industry, Turkish Navy Forces Command itself to realize some ship building projects at indigenous sector, although INSY is able to design and construct all kinds of naval ships required by Turkish Navy. The intention is that indigenous shipyards which is responsible for the project, benefits from fundamental naval shipyard experience of Turkish Navy in addition to enabling the know-how and technology transfer from Turkish Navy to the indigenous shipyards. In order to achieve this intention, 1 logistics support ship, 2 tankers, 5 tug boats, 2 fast patrol boats, 8 training boats and 4 pontoons of floating docks have been built by indigenous shipyards under the project control of INSY.



It has been tried to make a chance for indigenous shipyards to participate into naval ship building projects such as new type patrol boats, coast guard ship and MILGEM at the present, in order to improve capacities and technological structures of the indigenous shipyards.



The project name “MILGEM” (MILLI GEM? - National Ship), summarizing the main goal of the project, means that this shipbuilding project will be realized through the maximum use of national means, maximum participating of indigenous industry to MILGEM project are aimed. INSY and indigenous industry are cooperating very hard in order to achieve this aim and put it into life, and INSY forces indigenous industry to fulfill requirements and to improve their capabilities. Improvements achieved by indigenous industry at the present are at the level of happiness in terms of contribution of INSY to the indigenous defence industry.



Current knowledge and experience of indigenous industry on naval ship building are focused on naval ship technology and converted into high technological production by MILGEM project. At the same time, current but disorganized knowledge and experience of indigenous industry on naval ship building are collected together and improved by MILGEM project.



As a result of sub projects (which have been initiated to produce technology) of MILGEM project, necessary and efficient coordination among the indigenous research centers have been established in Turkey. MILGEM project provides lots of researches to the academicians in universities and the scientific and technological research council of Turkey. The construction of the hull of the first MILGEM ship, which was named as HEYBELIADA, was commenced on January 22, 2007.



MILGEM project promises a more reliable future to Turkish Defence Industry by supporting their research, design and production activities.