In the press: sailing should be within reach

A Turkish newspaper profiled the U530’s designer, Bahadır Eği, and the thinking behind his boats.

A retired electrical engineer, Eği turned a long-held interest into a working craft. He began in 1993 by fitting a sailing rig to a Zodiac, read what he could find from abroad, and talked to builders and sailors. His first design was a six-metre outrigger sailing canoe; then a small catamaran; then the “Sniper” canoe, a dozen of which have reached the water.

More recently came two boats aimed at people who want to take up sailing: the “Nokta”, a light single- or two-person boat with a wrapped sail, and then the U530 — a 5.3-metre, foam-cored design of around 170 kg, with a 30 kg lifting keel and an 11 m² sail, for two or three aboard. Its defining feature, the piece noted, is that with no shrouds or stays one person can step and unstep the mast easily; it travels on a trailer and launches almost anywhere; and with no boom there’s no risk of a knock in a sudden gust.

Eği’s line, quoted in the article, sums up the project: sailing should be accessible — a sign of cultural depth rather than wealth. You can read a country’s sailing culture, he said, in the number of small boats on its water — and until recently there wasn’t a sailing boat here within easy reach of the middle of the market.