PRENSES LILA

Fethiye in summer, then south along the Turquoise Coast and across to the Dodecanese for Kos, Symi, and Patmos. PRENSES LILA is a 36-metre gulet built at Fethiye Shipyard in 2003, refitted in 2022, and run as a classic Turkish blue-cruise boat from her home port on the south-west coast.

She carries sixteen guests in eight en-suite cabins, with six doubles and two twins, all air-conditioned. A crew of five runs the boat: captain, chef, deckhand, and two service staff who handle the cabins and the dining service.

The deck spaces are the point of a gulet this size. Sun mattresses across the foredeck, a shaded aft cockpit with the long teak dining table where the chef serves lunch and dinner, and a flybridge with its own seating. The interior salon is full-height glass on three sides and gives the boat a second dining room for cooler evenings.

Toys are run from the swim platform: two kayaks, paddleboards, water skis, a ringo, snorkel gear, and fishing tackle. A 4.2-metre tender with a 70HP outboard takes guests ashore for villages, beach lunches, and the small bays the gulet cannot reach. A second smaller tender carries the line for waterskiing.

A pair of 440HP diesels gives her ten knots under power, which is what a gulet on this coast needs. Most of the cruising is short hops between anchorages, with the sails up when the wind is right and the engines on when it is not.