Tour boats are manufactured in the Halfeti district of Şanlıurfa, which has the appearance of a coastal city thanks to the Birecik Dam Lake and hosts thousands of tourists with boat tours.
Halfeti, which was included in the “calm city” network in 2013 by the Cittaslow International Coordination Committee with its calm and peaceful feature, is still under the waters of the Birecik Dam, a part of which was built on the Euphrates, attracts the attention of local and foreign tourists with its historical stone houses and natural beauties.
Visitors have the opportunity to see the “sunken city”, which is mostly submerged, Rumkale, which has been home to many civilizations, the minaret of the mosque that was underwater, and the Savaşan District, where abandoned old buildings are located, with boat tours on the dam lake.
In the region, where boat tours attract great attention, boat workshops were established by entrepreneurs in the industrial site of the district to meet the need for boats. The boats, which are entirely made of metal and built under the control of engineers from Bartın, serve in the inland waters of many provinces, especially the Euphrates, if approved by the Mersin Port Authority authorities.
“It takes an average of 70 days to build a boat”
İlhan Argın, one of the boat manufacturers, said that he organized boat tours in Halfeti and that he made such an attempt to meet the need for boats and achieved success.
Stating that they had brought boats from distant cities such as Antalya, Van, and Bartın before, Argın said, “We said, “Why shouldn’t we do such a job in our district, and we got into this business. We manufacture our boats in our district. We have now completed 4-5 boats and launched them into the water. The construction of a boat takes approximately 70 days. Depending on the length of the boat, its width, and the number of people it will carry, it takes longer or shorter to build. Our two boats, which we are currently under construction, have a carrying capacity of 60 people.”
Argın emphasized that boat building is a difficult, laborious and dangerous job in terms of life safety.
Describing boat building as “the art of shaping iron”, Argın continued as follows,
“These boats are not fishing boats, but yacht-like tour boats, we try to make the boat float in the water in the best way possible. We shape the flat sheets and make the boats float on the water. We take the sheets 6-7 millimeters thick, we bend them to make the starboard and pier of the boat. We are currently carrying out the construction of 2 boats, and we have 5 pending orders. Since the area is not very suitable in our district, we can build 2 or 3 boats at the same time. In addition to tour boats, we also build fishing boats and yachts, we can build boats up to 25 meters in length here. Here, we place not only the hull of the boat but also its engine, propeller, shaft, and all kinds of parts and manufacture it ready and in working condition.”
“Previously, these boats were brought from the west and distant provinces”
Noting that they also receive orders from outside of Halfeti, Argın said, “We have orders from Diyarbakır, Batman Hasankeyf, and Gaziantep Yavuzeli. Because it is easier to take boats from here, these boats were brought from the west, from distant provinces before.”
Hasan Kandamar also stated that they have now professionalized the production that they started as an amateur.
Stating that they produce an average of 5 boats a year, Kandamar said, “The cost of our boats varies according to their size, they can range from 800 thousand liras to 1.5 million liras. With these tour boats, the operators in Halfeti take local and foreign tourists around the Euphrates. We have built 15 boats so far.”
“The boat descends from the workshop to the water in 15 minutes”
Ahmet Güler, who is a tour boat operator in Halfeti, said that he has been organizing boat tours on the Euphrates River in the district for many years.
Expressing that he sold the boat he brought from Bartın because it was worn out over time, Güler said,
“We used to have many problems with the route when we brought it from outside. Now, in our district, I am having my more solid, technological boat built from metal instead of wood here. It is especially pleasing for us that the boat production area is close to our marina, when we load the boat on the truck here, we will land the boat in our marina on the Euphrates in 15 minutes.”
