Karinja Mirko

Mirko Karinja

Dugi otok, 29 June 1925 -Sali, Dugi otok, August 2014

 

Mirko Karinja was born in a family of seven children at Sali on the island of Dugi otok in Croatia. He was a highly skilled shipbuilder and caulker, proficient at sealing cracks between the timber planking of ships.

 

Mirko’s father was a mariner and a farmer. Mirko embarked on schooling for the carpentry profession before World War II and successfully completed the single-year programme. In 1944, he joined the National Liberation Struggle in Zadar. After the war, he worked for some time in a Zadar shipyard, and eventually continued his schooling to become a shipbuilder. According to his own words, his principal professor and head of the school at the time was Blaž Jagnjić, probably from Dubrovnik. The students were liable to attend four hours of practical training in a shipyard and four hours of theoretical lessons at school. After completing three years of schooling, they took the shipbuilder’s assistant exam, then the master builder exam. After passing the examinations, Mirko was employed by the Third May Shipyard in Reka.

 

In 1957, he moved with his family from Sali to Piran, where he got a job on 1 March 1957 at the Soline shipyard stationed along the St. Jernej Channel. There, the maonas were repaired, ships used for salt transport, and other fishing vessels. His superior was Rado Bizjak, originally from Potoče in the Vipava Valley. Eventually, Mirko Karinja replaced him and soon appointed the firm’s foreman. Owing to a serious illness, he took early retirement, but fortunately managed to overcome the illness after four years. Due to a lack of staff in the shipyard, he later helped, at the request of the firm’s director, in the making of batanas.

 

Mirko Karinja renovated several old boats as well as made a few completely new wooden vessels. For his personal use, he built a leut, a 10-meter-long boat, and named "Bazdara," after his family's nickname, he was particularly proud of. On the Piran - Sali route, he crossed the Kvarner Gulf several times with it. For a number of years, he transported tourists along the Slovenian and Istrian coasts. In 1994, he cooperated with the Maritime Museum Piran in the first restoration of the museum's sailing boat Galeb.

 

He spent his last years at Sali, his birthplace.  

 

Source: Karinja M. (1992): Mirko Karinja (1925 – 2014), retired shipbuilder, Piran, conversation held on 6 June 1992, its written record kept in the museum’s historical documentation.

 

Prepared by Snježana Karinja and Nadja Terčon, August 2023