Istria gets another unique tourist attraction.
Along the west coast of Kamenjak in Premantura, the warship “Vis”, a former command ship of the Yugoslav Navy, was sunk to the seabed of the Polje bay, where it will serve as a tourist attraction for diving in the southern part of Istria, reports Novi List on May 22, 2016.
The former Yugoslav Navy warship was 85 metres long and was built at the Pula shipyard in 1956. Now it is owned by Arsen Brajković from Pula.
In a complex operation with two strong detonations, the ship was sunk 250 metres from the coast at the depth of 32 metres. The sinking attracted several thousand people who watched the spectacle from the shore and from surrounding boats. Police and the Port Authority secured the perimeter around the ship.
“It took us five years from the initial idea to implementation and Vis will now serve as an example to many in Dalmatia to do the same”, said Brajković to reporters. He recalled that he bought the ship in Montenegro in 2002. He was working for years on plans and projects to make it into a luxury yacht, but, as he said, due to the deteriorating situation in the Croatian economy and the financial markets, he decided to go in an entirely different direction.
“It would be nice to keep Vis as a yacht, but I realized that I could not do that in Croatia, nor was there anyone else who would be willing to do it”, said Brajković.
He announced that, after the sinking of the ship to the rocky bottom of the Premantura waters, he would start organizing diving expedition this summer.
