A bespoke journey: talking to Alia Yachts

Gokhan Celik, together with his partner Ömer Koray, founded Alia Yachts in 2008 after selling Peri Yachts, which they had started in 2003. With two new yachts scheduled for delivery later this year, we visited Gokhan Celik in Antalya at the end of last summer who talked us through the Alia Yachts journey.

How did you get the order for the first sailing yachts you undertook?

We had an American client approach us with his designer, Warwick Yacht Design, when we were still at Peri Yachts. We kept in touch, and after I had sold the company, I set up Alia Yachts. They knew that we were good at composite construction, and after some due diligence and a lot of technical discussions they decided to build the yacht with us.

The 41m displacement yacht Rüya was launched last summer. Was she initially planned to be constructed using composite materials?

In the beginning the boat was thought to be a steel and aluminum yacht, like most displacement yachts. But then the owner’s representative had the idea to do the project in composite, and once it became apparent that we could indeed build the yacht in composite, they really pushed for that. We said it would be easier to build in steel and aluminum but they said, “No. If you can do it, we need it to be done in the composite.”

By keeping the company very low profile over the past few years, you have managed to sell more than six yachts over 24 metres. How did you achieve that?

We get most of our business through word of mouth and references of people we previously dealt with; not only clients but also owner’s representatives and designers. I am yet to sell a boat through a broker. There are one or two projects that we got through our personal network, but it is not enough to solely rely on that. Networking, like in any business, is important, but you have to have a certain way of doing something very well in addition to delivering a quality product, so that your network can trust you with the job.

Are you open to work with brokers?

Of course. As long as it is a decent deal, I am open to work with anybody. It has to be clear, transparent. Brokers are very important part of this business. They all respect and trust the client, and the shipyard as well.

What’s your goal in regards to the amount of yachts you want to construct at once?

It is absolutely not our intention to be a serial builder in the foreseeable future. For us, the optimum would be working on 3 to 4 large yachts at any given time, depending on the size. Above and beyond everything we’re custom yacht builders. We must protect this identity and as part of being true to this identity, be able to offer each client a unique journey through the build process.

Technically, we must also recognise and respect our capabilities and capacities. We do not want to get bigger, but rather be better and better at what we do, while relentlessly increasing the quality of the product. I’ve always believed that people – from top to bottom – are the most important ingredient of what we do. Over the years we have assembled an exemplary group of people that love and respect what they do. But there’s only so many of them and there are only so many projects they can do at any given time. So we will work within this capacity but relentlessly work to keep improving the quality of what we do and the quality of the bespoke journey we offer to our clients.

All your projects now are full custom. Do you want to keep creating custom yachts or is a semi-custom line also an option?

It is an ongoing debate whether we should introduce a semi-custom line. It can be done, but we feel it is a step for the future, not for right now. We are working with a lot of well-known yacht designers and we have had this discussion with them as well. It will be a very rewarding venture, but in my opinion not a very easy one to achieve.

You designed a 16m day-boat that turned out to be very successful, with all four built and all sold. Was that a planned venture?

It was absolutely coincidence; a very important client of ours was not happy with the day boat he had, and asked me if I could do a boat for him. Once we did it for him another client saw it and wanted the same boat, and it just caught on from there.

On smaller boats, I believe it is harder to combine form and function in a very efficient manner. When designing the boat with Bill Dixon, we looked at what is out there, what are the clients’ needs, and what other people who might be interested in this boat might look into it or need. He did a very good design, we built great boats and the whole thing is very successful. This is a boat we are very excited about.

What are the upcoming projects for Alia Yachts?

We currently have a 30 metre and a 60 metre under construction that will both be delivered in 2016. We have spent the last year improving the process of our constructions and adding quality to our products in order to qualify for ISO. As you know, you can get ISO certification from anywhere but we wanted to be associated with the Lloyd's name as it is important for our clients and us. It shows our commitment to quality and how much importance we place on doing it right.

The full interview with Alia Yachts is featured in the fourth issue of the SuperYacht Times newspaper. Subscriptions are available here.