Double triumph for Cicek Shipyard at the Lloyd's List Turkish Shipping Awards

The Cicek Shipyard, located in Tuzla Bay near Istanbul, had a highly successful evening at the Lloyd's List Turkish Shipping Awards, held in Istanbul on 15 May. Not only did it win the Shipyard of the Year award but in the category Ship of the Year, two of the three short-listed vessels, the 1300TEU multipurpose container ship Ayse Naz Bayraktar and the 26,000dwt IMO II chemical tanker Besiktas Jutland, were products of Cicek Shiyard. The judges selected Ayse Naz Bayraktar as the winner of that category, thus crowning the night for Cicek.

Sponsored by Bureau Veritas, the Shipyard of the Year award was accepted by the shipyard's President, Celal Cicek, and his son, Berke Cicek, Vice President of Cicek Shipyard.

The Cicek Shipyard has two slipways and a panamax-sized building dock, currently being extended to 250m in length.

Construction of vessels in the building dock began in 2006. The first and still the only such facility in Turkey, it is served by a 300 tonne gantry crane and has already been used to construct four IMO II chemical tankers. Three of these were ice class 1A vessels for Besiktas Shipping, the 18,000dwt Besiktas England and Besiktas Scotland, and the 26,000dwt Besiktas Jutland, while the fourth is a 20,000dwt tanker currently under construction for the Kaptanoglu Group.

Construction of the Ship of the Year, Ayse Naz Bayraktar, took place on the larger of the yard's two slipways. This is 160m in length and is served by a 200-tonne gantry crane.

A smaller slipway suitable for building coastal vessels is currently being used for the construction of four 3,150 dwt IMO II chemical tankers for delivery in 2008.

The choice of Ayse Naz Bayraktar as Ship of the Year reflects the vessel's innovative design, which provides for considerable flexibility in trading patterns. While being perfectly suited for deepsea trading as a container ship, the design allows for a high intake of 9ft 6in high containers and two hatches can accommodate 45ft containers, including the 2.5m wide 'palletwide' containers now widely used in the intra-European trades. However, they have been designed in such a way that they could be switched to steel, breakbulk or bulk operations if required.

The vessels' nominal container capacity is stated to be 1287TEU, 775TEU being on deck and 512TEU below deck. At 14 tonnes homogeneous, the container capacity is 910TEU. 240 reefer plugs are provided.

Further flexibility is provided by two 45-tonne Liebherr shipboard cranes, making the ships fully self-sustaining.

An MAN B&W main engine, developing 11,060kW at 127rpm, provides sufficient power for a 19 knot service speed at 90% mcr.

In 2007, Cicek won the Ship of the Year award with the chemical tanker Puli.

Note to editors

A downloadable photograph to accompany the press release is available at http://www.dunelmpr.co.uk/Cicek-Photogallery.htm. The caption reads:

Sponsored by Bureau Veritas, the Shipyard of the Year award was presented by BV's Kerem Kieper (centre) to Cicek Shipyard's President, Celal Cicek (left) and his son, Berke Cicek, Vice President (right).

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