September the 23rd, 2023 – One Dugi Otok shipwreck is very interesting. It isn’t that it is ancient, beautiful or even particularly well-preserved. It is that it could be hiding a secret kept down there with it under the surface of the Adriatic Sea for four decades. Meet Michelle.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, Michelle, a fertiliser ship, ran aground on the site near Dugi Otok back in May 1983, but as Pixsell writes, there’s a local legend that suggests the accident may have been no accident after all…
According to the testimony of the lighthouse keeper from Veli Rat, Zvonimir Škvorčević, the sailors took advantage of the storm that was raging at the time of the vessel’s passing in Croatian waters and deliberately diverted the ship into the shallows, running it aground. It was rumoured that the Italians had secretly planned to run that ship aground on purpose because it was old. They wanted to get compensation from the Lloyd’s Register of Ships at the time. Seeing the vessel in apparent danger, the residents of Veli Rat were quick to come to the aid of the Italian crew who were potentially plotting this all along.
Michelle was abandoned in her watery grave…
Although the Italian crew, with the help of Veli Rat locals, did manage to unload the cargo from the vessel. Michelle was left at mercy of the unforgiving sea. It seems that this event was actually quite the turning point. Namely, after Michelle ran aground, a law was passed according to which ship owners must retrieve any old abandoned shipwrecks from the sea themselves.
Decades ago, this Dugi Otok shipwreck was almost intact, but exposure to the elements, the cruel hands of time and the forces of the Adriatic Sea accelerated her ongoing corrosion and deterioration. The ship’s superstructure has now completely disintegrated and collapsed, leaving only a flat structure at the stern, where the superstructure used to be.
Despite everything, Michelle’s hull has remained quite well preserved – at least for now. The round windows of the lower deck are still visible on the aft part of the ship, and the wreckage is shallow enough to see the mast.
If you’re a fan of Croatian music, you may be more familiar with Michelle than you might think, as the famous video for Gibonni’s song “Ej, vapore” was shot on this Dugi Otok shipwreck.
