What Is DEARSAN Shipyard? Turkey’s Fast-Rising Warship Builder, From Nigeria to Qatar to Unmanned Vessels

A Turkish shipyard that can deliver an offshore patrol vessel to Nigeria, a guided-missile fast attack craft to Qatar and an armed unmanned surface vehicle to its own navy in the space of a few years is worth a serious look. DEARSAN Shipyard, operating on a 15,000 m² facility in Tuzla, Istanbul, has quietly become one of Turkey’s most active private yards in the medium-size warship segment. Here is what DEARSAN builds, who its customers are, and why a 210-million-euro ASELSAN deal changed its profile.

Who is DEARSAN?

DEARSAN was founded in 1980 by the Gökbayrak family and pivoted to military vessel production in 2007. In 2013, Aziz Yıldırım — the former chairman of Fenerbahçe Football Club — acquired 100 per cent of DEARSAN’s shares. The yard is today run by Yıldırım’s son-in-law Murat Gordi and operates from Tuzla, Istanbul.

What sets DEARSAN apart from most Turkish yards is its stated ability to manage the full production cycle in-house: from hull design and construction to weapons integration and post-delivery support. That claim is increasingly backed by delivered hardware.

What does it build?

OPV (Offshore Patrol Vessel): 76-metre class, armed with guns and missiles, built for long-range patrol and blue-water operations.
Fast Attack Craft (FAC): 50-metre class guided-missile attack boats, currently under construction for Qatar.
Armed USV (SALVO SİDA): Turkey’s first armed unmanned surface vehicle to enter naval inventory.
Mine Countermeasures Vessels: new-generation MCM platforms; contracts signed 2024–2025.
Auxiliary Vessels: various support platforms for the Turkish Navy.

Export record

DEARSAN’s international breakthrough came with the Nigeria project: two OPV-76 offshore patrol vessels built and delivered to the Nigerian Navy, with an open-source contract figure of approximately USD 160 million. For a yard of DEARSAN’s size, delivering capital warships to a major sub-Saharan navy was a defining reference.

Then came Qatar. A 2024 contract with the Qatar Armed Forces covers the design and construction of two 50-metre guided-missile fast attack craft. The first vessel’s keel was laid in 2025. These two export programmes place DEARSAN among a small group of Turkish yards with proven mid-size warship export credentials.

The ASELSAN deal: 210 million euros

In early 2025, ASELSAN announced a EUR 210 million agreement with DEARSAN and two other companies covering naval platform electronics: electronic warfare, radar, communications, navigation, weapons, electro-optics and underwater systems. This contract is significant beyond its headline number: it signals that DEARSAN is no longer just a shipbuilder but is positioning itself as a full combat-system integrator, with ASELSAN as its electronics backbone.

Turkish Navy programmes

Alongside exports, DEARSAN has built a domestic portfolio. Per open sources:

Contract for 2 × HISAR-class offshore patrol vessels and 1 × next-generation mine countermeasures vessel for the Turkish Navy.
Additional auxiliary vessels for the Turkish Navy.
SALVO armed USV (TCB-1401) delivered to Turkish Naval Forces Command after completing acceptance trials on 28 August 2025.

Global rivals

In the medium-size warship export segment, DEARSAN competes, per open sources, with:

OCEA (France) — active in Africa and Gulf OPV and FPB markets
Lürssen (Germany) — OPVs and corvettes for Gulf customers
CMN (France) — fast attack and patrol vessels
Damen (Netherlands) — broad OPV and patrol portfolio

DEARSAN’s competitive edges appear to be pricing, delivery timelines, and a willingness to engage markets that established European yards sometimes avoid.

Assessment

DEARSAN’s trajectory over the past decade — civilian-to-military pivot, foreign ownership, export breakthrough, ASELSAN partnership — is a compressed version of Turkey’s wider defence-industry story. Nigeria, Qatar, the Turkish Navy: three customers, three platforms, three markets. The ASELSAN deal turns what was a shipbuilder into a systems integrator. The delivery of SALVO puts it at the frontier of autonomous maritime warfare. The minesweeper and auxiliary programmes will consolidate its domestic position. DEARSAN is no longer a yard that builds ships. It is a yard that builds warships.