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<\/p>\nA yacht named after Hiawatha, the legendary leader of Native Americans and founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, has been one of the most eyecatching boats on the Bosphorus, which divides Istanbul in two, for more than half a century.<\/p>\n
Built in 1932 and belonging to the Consulate General of the United States of America in Istanbul, the fifteen-meter tall Hiawatha served for many years by adorning the Bosphorus landscape. Behind its sleek lines lay the signature of Walter J. McInnis. McInnis began his career at George Lawley & Son Corp. in Neponset, Massachusetts, where he worked in the design office for twelve years. In 1924, he became head of the design office at the Frederick S. Nock shipyard in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. A year later, he and Lawley established their own firm and began signing influential contracts. One of these was the collaboration established with the American Car & Foundry company, and they would build hundreds of boats for the newly prosperous American market, and one of them, Hiawatha, would end up in Istanbul.<\/p>\n
Hiawatha was used to tour the Bosphorus for important guests of the consulate, and was so frequently seen on the Bosphorus that Richard Hinkle, who coordinated the tours, even wrote a book about the Bosphorus in all its aspects, named From the Bosphorus.<\/p>\n
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The captain who sailed the Hiawatha for decades was a Turkish captain named Naci. Captain Naci, who meticulously cleaned the boat every morning at Bebek Bay when he was not on tour, became so identified with his boat that it became known as “Naci’s Hiawatha.” Even though it was not officially registered, “Naci’s” was added to the name on the boat at one point.<\/p>\n
Although Hiawatha began to drift away from its diplomatic duties as it grew older, its time on the water did not end so easily. Because there was someone who had dreamed of owning it ever since he was a student at Robert College in Bebek in the 1940s. It was Rahmi Ko\u00e7 who, after becoming one of T\u00fcrkiye\u2019s most prominent businessmen, was also the one who founded a museum that brought together works focusing on industrial history. In the summer of 2013, with the co custodianship protocol signed between the Rahmi Ko\u00e7 Museum and the US Consulate General in Istanbul, Hiawatha underwent a comprehensive restoration and began to be exhibited in the museum. Since all of its parts were kept in working order, it could also be unmoored from the Golden Horn and sail around the Bosphorus when desired.<\/p>\n
The US Consul General in Istanbul at the time, Scott Kilner, had heard of Rahmi Ko\u00e7\u2019s interest in Hiawatha and read his letters stating that he was interested in the boat if it were to be sold one day. In 2012, the consul general and the ambassador came to a decision and visited Ko\u00e7 and stated that they wanted to give Hiawatha to the museum on the condition that he remained its owner. The negotiations and procedures between the two institutions lasted about a year, and after the formalities were completed, the co guardianship of the two institutions came into effect. As a result, Hiawatha, which hosted delegations coming to Istanbul to develop relations between the two countries for many years, came under the protection of the Rahmi Ko\u00e7 Museum and continued to serve. Now everyone can see it in the museum, and only the luckiest, most distinguished guests can go on a tour with it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":3053,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3052","sirenas-whisper","type-sirenas-whisper","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sirenas-whisper"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3422,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sirenas-whisper\/3052\/revisions\/3422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sirenaselection.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}