Director of Mitan Marina: ‘We want our new hall to be a storage facility for the entire water area’
When you cannot expand on the sea, then there is no other choice but to expand on land. That’s how Tomislav Salopek, director of Mitan Marina, a port open to public traffic, located at the exit from Novi Vinodolski, will say it. Namely, Mitan Marina will soon be the first Croatian boat mooring with the same number of places (berths) in the sea as on land – 160 each – or 320 in total.
- We cannot expand to the sea because we have that brutal 180-meter breakwater at the exit, and if we want to strengthen our business, then it must be on land – explains the plan director Salopek.
And the land plans have already been drawn up: first, in the industrial zone of Novi Vinodolski, by autumn Mitan Marina will build a new hall, a 330 square meter boat storage area, right next to the old hall. With this, says the director, they reach a total capacity of 160 ships that can be pulled out of the sea, connected to a tug and stored under the roof. Secondly, in addition to the six rooms in which they now offer accommodation, right next to the sea, they plan to build another six new apartments of around 55 square meters in size and arrange a concrete beach in front. The director says that so far the rooms have been half-full, that is, half of the guests were from the marina, and half from outside.
We come to Moruskva bay, where Mitan is located, from Novi marina. Five years ago, in spite of disbelief, the investor, otherwise an oil businessman, Vanja Špiljak, built a marina here, which is justifiably nicknamed the “Fort of Mitan”. As usual, we are greeted at the wharf by young and agile sailors, among them 23-year-old Renato, who has been working here for three years. The tradition and trademark of Mitan is tying the stern with Liros marine ropes. Renato shifts them and ties them with lightning speed, and then jumps on board, checks the moorings, electricity, water, asks ‘is everything OK?’. – Great! – If you need anything else, you know where to find us…
Then the director Tomislav Salopek welcomes us. He says that, unlike last year, all facilities in the marina are open, and the Rakar family, which runs the Marengo restaurant there – better known in Novi Vinodolski as Svemir, Svemir and Svemir (father, son and grandson, all restaurateurs) – is working full steam: breakfast , lunch, dinner, fine fish cuisine, but also fast food, hamburgers, pizzas, desserts. There is no shortage of offers. With the director Salopek, we arrange a tour of the novelties: the old and new halls for storing ships, which make them an equally strong force on land as well as at sea. Both are located in the industrial zone of Novi Vinodolski, a ten-minute drive from the Mitan marina.
- Our ambition is for it to be a warehouse for ships for the entire water area, that is, from Kraljevica, Jadranovo, Crikvenica, Povila. No one else has such a space – the director tells us while driving.
We come to a blue warehouse, 300 square meters in size, on about 10 thousand square meters of fenced space, where they are already preparing about 80 boats for wintering. It’s an old hall. An unfair name considering that it was built a few years ago. Everything is surrounded by a high fence, surrounded by olive trees, and the long gate of the fence opens only after entering the correct code into the remote control. The dumping ground for floating vehicles, that’s what it’s officially called, notes Director Salopek.
- It is not a dry marina, which must have, say, sanitary facilities, but a disposal site that is used for cleaning ships, and must have a sprinkler system, video surveillance, must have its own workshop and be fenced… – director Salopek explains the difference.
Right next to that lot, there is a new cleared space of the same size, where the preparatory work for the new hall has already been done, the construction permit is pending, and by the fall a new 330-square-meter storage room for 80 boats will emerge there. Considering that the new hall, which should be a little bigger than the existing one, have fewer internal columns (the boats will fit better), completely produced in Croatia, in gray, blue and white colors and with a new workshop and two new employees, more we can’t always check, director Salopek let us into the old one.
