From Sponge Boats to Gulets: the Boats that Sheltered in Bitez and the Bodrum Tırhandil
Our family’s story began on sponge-diving boats. The names and shapes of the boats that sheltered on the Bitez shore, and where you can still see them today.
BALIKÇI İSMET · BİTEZ · PUBLISHED: 26 OCTOBER 2026 · 7 MIN READ
Bitez, a shelter
The Balıkçı İsmet story began at sea, long before the tables in Bitez. Our grandfather and his brothers worked as sponge divers and kangava (dredge) sponge fishermen, sailing as far as Mersin from Bodrum. As they earned, they bought boats for one another. After sponge diving, fishing grew and they worked with ırıp boats. Around 1992 a gulet built for the family brought tourism into the business as well. We tell these details in our story.
In those years Bitez was a natural harbour where fishing and sponge-diving boats took shelter. Knowing the names and shapes of the boats passing the bay is one way of reading this shore’s history.
The tırhandil: the Aegean double-ender
According to the Bodrum Maritime Museum, before tourism Bodrum used boats between 5 and 28 metres long for fishing, sponge diving and cargo. The first type to catch the eye among them is the tırhandil, which the museum calls “the Aegean double-ender”. Its design is thought to go back thousands of years.
A tırhandil is about three times as long as it is wide, with a curved stem, an almost straight stern and a short keel. According to the museum, tırhandils were built in great numbers as sponge diving expanded, and a few are still among today’s Blue Voyage boats.
Another favourite of the sponge divers was the çırnık; the museum says its short keel is what endeared it to them. Among the smaller workboats were piyades, between 6.5 and 8.5 metres long, with 7.5 metres considered the ideal length.
The gulet: from a rig to a boat
The gulet, the boat everyone now associates with Bodrum, was at first the name of a rig rather than a hull. The word comes from the schooner rig and only later came to mean boats with a round stern. A clipper bow and round stern are its distinctive features; those with a flat, square-cut stern are called aynakıç.
The gulet’s origins are debated. A common view is that it is a relatively recent adaptation of the double-ended tırhandil used by sponge divers and fishermen around the Aegean. Gulets up to 40 metres are built in Bodrum today.
Boatbuilding in Bodrum also has a written history. According to the museum, the oldest known document about the Bodrum boatyard is an official letter dated 1715.
Where to see them
Scale models of these boats are on show at the Bodrum Maritime Museum. The museum sometimes closes temporarily, so check its current status before you go. In 2022 Bodrum Municipality and the Bodrum Maritime Museum signed a protocol to set up Turkey’s first Sponge Diving Museum.
The best time to see wooden boats at sea is the Bodrum Cup, raced at the end of the charter season, when the gulets set sail past the peninsula. And when you see a wooden boat come into Bitez bay in the late afternoon, look at its bow and stern. You will now be able to tell which one it is.