FLYING BOATS AND UNUSUAL BOAT STORIES by Jane Cody
This is one of the more eccentric images from our travels round the Dalmatian Coast: a home made flying boat which managed all of 20 yards when we saw it in action. When it's not flying off the beach at Dugi rat, near Split, it makes a handy sunshade for tourists. When it is, the noise is earth shattering.
The Dalmatians are highly skilled at making something from nothing – we’ve talked to the owner of a classic yacht, built in Croatia, where the engine had to be smuggled in from Germany in bits in the back of a car. During the Yugoslav war (1991-1995), there was an embargo on the import of anything mechanical so there were several trips across the border and a challenge in assembly to put the huge engine back together again.
When we’re not sailing, our “day boat” is a 1984 Dalmatinka fishing boat and we’ve seen them in several shapes and forms - some with odd looking portacabin type constructions on top, some “cut off” versions and some with outboards so disproportionately huge to the size of the boat that they might compete with the contraption in the picture for a couple of yards.
So we’re launching a challenge to find the most unusual “vessel”, or the
most unusual story behind the construction of a “vessel”, vessel as definedby its widest terms to include ship, yacht, boat, etc!
by Jane Cody
Author of Croatia Cruising Companion
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