History of the ship

Story about "Sardine"

Ships are the same as people, for a tear they give two tears, for you they die ..., sang the legendary Toma Bebić in the lyrics of the song "Leute moj", an unconventional, versatile artist from Split whose compositions are often found in the repertoire of our host, the Rap of captain Hrvoj Vrtodušić, when after docking his "Sardine" in one of the bays marked in the excursion sailing routes around Rab, he replaces the helm with a guitar and begins to animate the tourists with a song.

The story about "Sardina" that we are bringing you is actually a thread brought up to the present day from the same weaving of traditional and native shipbuilding that our skilled builders, craftsmen, caulkers left us as a legacy over the centuries, and which is still evidenced by the old gajeta and leuts with proofs of old forge anchored in the porticos of the towns and cities of the Croatian coast.

The Adriatic Sea was one of the most important intersections of trade routes in prehistoric times in the then extremely important Mediterranean navigation basin. Over the centuries, it was conquered by the Romans, Greeks and Venetians, so the shipbuilders of that time from this "our" part of the Adriatic assimilated numerous influences of "foreign" traditional shipbuilding into their knowledge, and for their own needs; fishing, transport of people, cargo and livestock, later gave birth to their distinctive style of building wooden boats.

Unfortunately, here in our country we are witnessing the extinction of these same traditional ships from the inherited architectural heritage, while at the same time, in other European maritime countries, such ships are treated as a cultural product and heritage worth preserving, so there is no shortage of subsidies for their maintenance and construction, and again vocational schools are also opened with scholarships for pupils and students.

The people who build these wooden ships and take care of them, consider them similar to human beings, carved beauties of wooden ribs with a breathed soul, but only they know how much love, effort and money should be invested in order for such a ship to continue its life.

"Sardina" is a traditional Croatian wooden ship "born" in 1951 in the shipyard of the then company "Spužvar" from Šibenik, however, through recent research, in cooperation with older local residents of Šibenik, Hrvoje's son found out that the ship was actually built on the island of Krapanj, where the company had one smaller schooner, adapted mainly for smaller ships.

The first name of the ship was "Gacka" and the ship was built for the needs of the then Jadrolinija and as a 16-meter cargo ship maintained the line from Trogir to Drvenik Veli and Drvenik Mali. After five years, the boat was bought by the Sardina factory from Postira on the island of Brač, and it was given the name "Sardina", which it still bears today. It was then used to transport fish and canned goods to Split and the surrounding areas. Later, the ship changed several owners, and for some time it was used for extracting and transporting sand, was a trawler, a ship for transporting divers, and finally a passenger ship.

In 2016, a staged, seven-year-long renovation of the ship's complete structure will begin, from the main deck, the bow deck, from the "castle" to the outer plating - "mandir", as well as the ribs - "korbe".