Turbulent Origins: Miro Rudar, the Largest Speedboat in Adriana’s Fleet
The giant speedboat in Adriana’s fleet, Miro Rudar, has quite a turbulent history. Constructed in the early ’90s, it was one of the boats locally known around Dubrovnik as „smuggler cigars“. Speedboats of such kind were of very long and sleek designs resembling a cigar, and smugglers used them to smuggle cigarettes across the Adriatic Sea. In the turbulent years of wars of independence, control and regulations by officials were easily avoided.
During that period, several such high-speed vessels were built with only two factors in mind – big cargo hold and high speed. Smugglers were getting cheaper cigarettes on the eastern coast and took them under the cover of the night to Italy. At the time unnamed future Miro Rudar bolstered four engines of 450 hp each and (besides engines and fuel tanks) a spacious hull designed to fit as many cartons of cigarettes in it as possible.
Thanks to its powerful engines, such boats were capable of crossing the Adriatic Sea in just a couple of hours and thanks to the big price difference between Italy and Albania/Croatia/Bosna and Herzegovina, such a boat paid off in just two runs. Every next trip to Italy after that was making pure profit.
At the time, ill-equipped Croatian maritime police had no capabilities of pursuing or intercepting such boats. Tide changed when one of the smuggler’s boats broke down and floated abandoned in Tiha Bay in Cavtat. After seizing and repairing it, police in Dubrovnik finally had a vessel capable of catching up and seizing other smuggler boats. As many records of those war years are lost, there is a strong possibility that that first smuggler boat turned into a police one, under the designation P-203, later became Miro Rudar. While serving with the police, the boat was tasked with patrol, SAR and control duties.
After the turn of the millennium, Croatia and its police started to recover and maritime units started to receive new, purposefully-built boats for their needs and all seized former smuggler boats became obsolete. They were stripped of useful equipment and their hulls were sold. Adriana Cavtat bought the hull for conversion which was made locally and by our talents on the site in Brgat in the winter ’06-’07.
In the previous summer, the company suffered a loss of a beloved and valued colleague who was with us from the new beginning after the war. Miro Rudar was from Zagreb but was working every summer in the old city port before suffering a stroke. In his memory, the new ship was named in his honour.
After the completion, some minor flaws were found in the overall stability of the vessel and the hull was improved. With the addition of the side extents and with extending the stern, the speedboat is now much more stable, even in the rough seas and with a full load of passengers.
Miro Rudar now carries two Perkins Sabre engines of 215 hp each and cruises comfortably at 11 miles with a full load of passengers. In some standards brief, but the quite dynamic history of the ship is reflected through the hull lines.
