Trying to learn more about wooden boat construction, I sought out the few remaining shipwrights in Perth.

I was lucky enough to find Aaron Woodall‘s contact details, and visited him in his Henderson workshop. He was able to offer me a short-term job learning some tricks of his trade.

Aaron’s training came with a distinct Croatian influence. His master was Nick Sohry was Croatian and Nick’s master was Marko Sambrailo – one the brothers from Korcula who built many of Western Australia’s crayfishing boats. The brothers arrived in the 1950′s setting up their boatyard on Riverside Drive in East Fremantle, and later moving to Fishing Boat Harbor before closing recently. These pictures below are of their yard.

At Aaron’s yard he has been renovating the Avone, a 36′ Halvorsen, built in Sydney in 1956.

The Halvorsen shipyard is another successful immigrant story.

Lars Halvorsen, son of a Norwegian ship-builder, moved his family to Sydney in 1925, and began putting boats in the water.

In 1962, Halvorsens built “Gretel” the first Australian challenger for the Americas Cup.

Until 1980 the family designed and built nearly 1,300 craft, including vessels for the Allied forces during WWII, which earned Lars’ eldest son Harold the Order of Australia Medal, in Australia.

In 1975 a joint venture company was formed in Hong Kong to design, build and market a new range of pleasure boats worldwide. The company was called ‘Kong & Halvorsen Marine & Engineering Company’. By the 1980s production had moved across the border to Southern China, and to the present day over 900 Halvorsen Boats have been built in East Asia.

Recently after 20 years Halvorsen has also returned to building in Australia.

Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica‘s shed.

It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism.

Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and David Hicks – but that aside it is was very positive.

The fight between the Arista directors Don Marshall and Ivica Viljac is made evident with Don saying the boat will be released shortly, and Ivica contradicting that by saying it will not.

(It should be noted that Arista has decided to hire a Public Relations consultant, Lori Vitaljić from Predikat d.o.o., to help with their image.)

David Hicks, of Arista Nautica and Arista Yachts, was questioned today by Croatian police in Split, regarding threats he made to us (Julie Morgan and Shane Braddock) on May 8th to harm us himself or use Ivica Viljac as a weapon.

David said on the day, “I want to scare you to protect my friends, Tim Jarman and Giles Weston (unregistered foreigners in Croatia at the time) from your promises to report Tim and Giles to immigration authorities for conducting business affairs against you.”

On Friday Julie was attacked by Ivica Viljac!

Addendum – 28 June 2009 – Surprise – we went to use our car on Sunday only to discover it had been vandalized – we wonder who did it?

Whilst away on a trip this week I received a text message on Friday from David Hicks, an owner of Arista Nautica, who has been holding our leut, Labud, for several weeks, advising me I had some mail at my office.

After weeks of trying to approach Arista and deal with this issue respectively, David’s response was to push a letter under the door of our office at 10pm addressed to ‘Mr Badcock‘, a witty play on my name ‘Braddock‘.

In the letter, he and Don Marshall stated that I had 24 hours to remove my boat from their premises. Why the sudden change in heart – maybe their lawyer in Zagreb had advised them that they had already committed a crime by holding our boat hostage in their shed!

Even with such short notice Julie did an amazing job of getting all the required machinery to the yard to begin putting the boat in the water, as well as organizing help for our 2- and 5-year olds.

The Labud was moving smoothly towards freedom when suddenly Ivica Viljac arrived.

As part of Arista‘s initial deal to use the space where they are presently they were obliged to make Ivica an equal director in their firm. (We are going to the police tomorrow to report David Hicks for making threats against us involving Ivica – but that story is for later).

Ivica’s reaction to Julie removing the Labud can be seen in the picture at the top of the post. He was not happy. He ran at Julie screaming! The police were called; he was arrested and found guilty of disturbing the peace and faces a future criminal assault charge.

What seems to have upset Ivica the most, however, was that Don Marshall had not told him what was going to happen on Friday. According to Julie, Tea Odza and Zana Dujmovic (the girls who work in Arista‘s office), said there have been previous arguments in this regard – Don doing things in which Ivica believed he should have a say.

Since I was away (which David Hicks knew – I have a text message to prove it), and since Don and David’s letter pressured us to remove the boat by 3pm Friday, Julie, by herself, worriedly rushed to the yard, though with the belief she had the right to be there. She was completely unaware of the physical danger she was in.

It must be said – even the day after both of them (Don and David) sent text messages saying that everything that occurred was of our OWN doing!

Below is Julie at the police station waiting to act as a witness against Ivica.

But Don and David were not really interested in Julie. Their target appears to be Ivica himself. The next day a story in the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija, explained why.

David and Don have started a new company, Arista Yachts, which is competing with two other companies, Viktor Lenac (RLE) and Adriamar, for the 30-year concession for a large amount of waterside space – they all want to set up a super-yacht yard.

The directors of the new company are Don, David and Geoff Mayhill. Geoff is involved in at least one British company, Ekwienox, with Arthur Hughes, who is owner of Hidden Croatia and Sail Croatia. Luka Grubor, the mouth piece for Arista Yachts in the article below is also a director of Sail Croatia.

But Ivica being on an assault charge should keep him out of the new venture from Arista’s POV – which would obviously upset Don – though he may go back to RLE whence he came.

The foreigners have learned well from the locals how business is done here!

(And where were Don and David during this fiasco – they had fled Croatia, we discovered later, because of serious physical threats made to them by their Croatian business partner in Arista Nautica (and Viljac’s boss) Mirko Rapić – and yet they happily sent Julie into the lion’s den. David’s boat Mystique was hiding on Hvar Island where I happened to bump into them. Someone was taking full advantage of the warm weather to work on his all over tan!)

For those that can’t see the video of Ivica attacking Julie below – click here!

]]> http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/ivica-viljac-thrown-to-the-wolves/feed/ 16 http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/bad-news-comes-in-threes/ http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/bad-news-comes-in-threes/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 14:40:53 +0000 Braddock Family http://blog.lifejacketadventures.com/?p=1291 The last two weeks have been a little disappointing – and between trying to fix the problems and run tours we haven’t had time to post regularly on the blog. Its written somewhere that bad news comes in threes – so hopefully we have good times ahead.

#1 – Time Out Croatia

We provided numerous pictures to Time Out Croatia for their current magazine issue, in exchange for our contact details being published, and they chose one. But imagine our shock when we opened the new issue to see that they had put our picture (seen above), uncredited as well, right next to a paragraph of text extolling our competitors, Adriatic Kayak Tours.

The saga continues…

#2 – Arista Nautica

The leut, Labud, is finished and ready to be launched. But she still sits in the shed at the Arista Nautica yards in Vranjic.

Why? Because two personal friends of David Hicks (one of the yard’s owners), Tim Jarman and Giles Weston, were doing the wrong thing by us business-wise – so we told them to pull their heads in or we would go to the police. The cowards got worried – as they are unregistered to live in Croatia – and ran to David. He demanded we pay $US20,000 before we can remove our boat from the shed. This was done in the hope we would be scared and leave his friends alone.

We told him to keep the boat and that we will see him and Don Marshall (the other owner) in the criminal and civil courts. There are no contracts between us and I have done in the last 12 months three design projects for David and Don and not asked for a cent.

The saga continues…

#3 – Motovun Elections

Local elections were held across Croatia on May 17. We made the pilgrimage in Motovun to vote. Our friend, Ranko Bon (seen below kissing the obligatory baby (Roklan)), was standing as a candidate for the Green Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. His candidacy was part of a continuing campaign to sustainably improve Motovun (and stop the proposed Jupiter Adria golf development).

The results were not as we had hoped. Firstly, the current mayor and IDS candidate, Slobodan Vugrinec, was returned. Secondly, Ranko didn’t earn a position on the town council.

Across Croatia there was a movement away from the center-right parties (HDZ and IDS) but the center-left party (SDP) didn’t pick up the vote – secondary parties and independents did. So in Motovun it wasn’t all bad news – IDS lost 3 seats (from 9 down to 6), SDP/Greens also lost a seat (from 4 to 3 (Ranko was 4th on their list)) and a new independent party got 4 seats. These Motovun independents, before the election, had voiced their concerns about the golf development – so we have to wait and see.

Mayor Vugrinec has already thrown a tantrum, stating he no longer wants the position if he doesn’t have an absolute majority in the town council!

The saga continues…

( In Split, after earning over 45% of the initial vote, Kerum will be in a run-off this weekend – which he is likely to win – and become our next mayor.)

Split’s a small town – almost 250,000 people – and the traditional wooden boat community is even smaller.

Tonka Alujević, our sea-faring friend and owner of Bonnie’s ‘favorite boat in the world‘, is also a journalist. The latest edition of Otvoreno More, the local nautical magazine, features her article on the Dani Hrvatske Male Brodogradnje (Croatian Small Boat Days).

Tonka’s vote for the fair’s best boat (pictured in the article) went to one built by Griša Čurin from Barka. Griša is the man in charge of the renovation of our boat – the Labud.

The finishing touches are being completed on the leut, including her name been painted on the stern. As mentioned previously her name, Labud – which means ‘swan’ in Croatian – is a reference to the river which runs through Perth. From my parents’ house on the river the Swan Yacht Club can be seen. Its burgee (below) will fly from the Labud‘s rigging.

The swan on the burgee is black (the colour the boat is painted) – since in the antipodes everything is done backwards. Black swans appear on everything in Western Australia – including on the state flag and its coat of arms (both above).

Its only fair that the state symbol for Dalmatia is also flown. The flag and coat of arms above show Dalmatia’s three golden leopards on a their blue background. (Yes the leopards have manes! In medieval heraldry leopards were often shown without spots and with manes – as they were believed to a crossbreed of a lion and a panther). The origins of this symbol are lost – though examples from the 14th Century exist.

The Dalmatian Coat of Arms is included on the Croatian Coat of Arms and flag (above). Its in the middle of the five small symbols above the medieval (maybe even 10th Century) Croatian red and white chequey (šahovnica). Of course the Croatian flag will be the highest flag on the boat since it will be Croatian registered.

The small symbols of the Croatian Coat of Arms are as follows (from left to right):

- The oldest known coat of arms of Croatian rulers- a golden six-pointed star over a silver moon on a blue shield – thought to be pagan symbols. (The crescent moon has nothing to do with Islam as the shield predates the religion).

- The coat of arms of the Dubrovnik Republic – two red stripes on a dark blue shield.

- Dalmatia.

- The coat of arms of Istria – a golden goat with red hooves and horns, on a dark blue shield.

- The 15th Century coat of arms of the northern region of Slavonia – two silver stripes, which represent the Drava and Sava Rivers that form it’s borders, on blue shield , between them, on a red field a black, a running marten (a mongoose-like animal known as a kuna in Croatian) and above a six-pointed, golden star. The pelts of the kuna were used as a early form of early money in Croatia, so the local currency now called the kuna (below)

There will also be an Australian flag somewhere on the boat…

Split’s adventurous couple, Tonka Alujević and Alen Krstulović, last night presented the documentary for their last adventure – rowing and sailing their renovated 1936 2.9m guc (shown above) 550 nautical miles through France’s Canal du Midi, from the Mediterranean Sea to Atlantic Ocean, and finishing in Brest for the International Maritime Festival last year.

The website for the guc project is here and the other website for all of Tonka’s and Alen’s adventures, such as riding their BMW motorcycle around the Mediterranean, is here.

Their presentation was part of the Dani Hrvatske Male Brodogradnje (Croatian Small Boat Days) held at the Le Meridien Grand Hotel Lav. This small fair was held just after the Croatia Boat Show in Split – its big, but not as handsome, brother.

This year, its 11th, the Croatia Boat Show, from the outside, seemed a disaster. The number of exhibitors was down (and I assume the number of buyers) due to the world’s financial concerns, but it didn’t help that Huey, the weather god, sent rain squalls and fog for the whole week.

Aklie, the boat show critic, only liked two things – the Aston Martin DBS and the ‘pirate boat’ (really the Tirena, a replica of a 16th Century Ragusan galleon). Slim pickings indeed!

The leut is close to completion, finally. All the benches and the galley are in, as is the engine. Currently she is being painted – mostly black. Traditionally boats were painted in whatever paint was at hand – all the available paint was poured into a big pot – so the end result was usually a grayish colour.

Since our boat will be named the Labud (The Swan), after the river which runs through Perth, and Australian swans are black, we choose a classy black with gray, white and red detailing.

Its now just another of the rusting hulks tied to the pier in the North Port in Split. But when she was on top of the water and fully rigged she looked like the picture below and was known as the MY Dalmat.

The 270-ton, 45m-long Dalmat was built at the San Rocco shipyard in Trieste in 1896. At that time Trieste was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Dalmat became a royal yacht in the Hapsburg’s navy.

In June 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand arrived off the Dalmatian coast in his flag-ship, the battleship SMS Viribus Unitis. From the battleship he was transferred to the Dalmat, which sailed him up the Neretva River to Metkovic.

In Metkovic Franz Ferdinand boarded a train which took him to Sarajevo. At school we are all taught the events that followed. Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated and as a result World War 1 began.

The bodies were then transported back to Metkovic, where the Dalmat had the proud role of again transferring the Archduke back to the Viribus Unitis. Below is the New York Times article of the day.

So here in the North Port’s polluted waters is one of history’s most important boats.

In the 1990s the Dalmat (renamed the Istranka), after being decommissioned from the Yugoslav and Croatian navies, became a floating restaurant in Split Port!

She was then towed to the North Port for the first time, until Gianfranco Cozzi from Genoa, a Christian Democrat member of the Italian parliament, and a naval collector purchased her and began renovations.

His plan was to place her in his museum at Santo Stefano al Mare, near San Remo, on the Italian Riviera. However in 2003, just as he was to move her across the Adriatic, the Croatian government declared the Dalmat a national treasure and didn’t allow her to leave Croatian waters. (See original Times of London article.)

“She had been dumped like a lump of old iron”, Gianfranco said. “I saved her from being scrapped, but now Zagreb is refusing to let the yacht leave out of a nationalistic whim. The Habsburg yacht has nothing to do with Croatia beyond that she happened to end up there. There is no case for blocking her export. It was built in Trieste, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, but is now Italian. I paid €500,000 or her, and I have since spent €5 million restoring her.”

Unfortunately Gianfranco recently died – so he will never see the project completed. The Croatian government doesn’t own the vessel and doesn’t have the funds or nous to renovate her. Again she was left in the North Port, where she will just slowly dissolve – the last remaining vessel of the Austro-Hungarian navy.

(Without the Austro-Hungarian navy Georg von Trapp wouldn’t have become a U-boat hero and we would never have had the Sound of Music!)

Tim sent the latest pictures of the leut renovation.

The planks, ribs and rudder have been repaired, the refurbished engine is back in, the decks sanded, the lanteen and mast completed, the hatch coamings and covers finished, bulkheads installed and the benches begun.

All is looking good for a February launch date – finally! She will then act as a support boat for our kayak tours.

Name? Maybe Crni Labud – which means Black Swan – after Perth’s river.