Jadran is a sailing ship for basic naval training built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy and currently in Montenegrin Navy service. A three-mast topsail schooner or barquentine with an auxiliary engine, Jadran was built in Hamburg, Germany between 1930 and 1933, and commissioned on 19 August 1933. Prior to World War II she completed seven long training cruises with trainees from the Yugoslav Naval Academy, including one to North America. As Yugoslavia was neutral at the outbreak of World War II, Jadran was able to conduct short cruises in the Adriatic Sea. In April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers, and Jadran was captured and renamed Marco Polo by the Italian Navy. She continued to be used as a training ship in the Adriatic, operating out of the Istrian port of Pola, and was featured in an Italian propaganda film.
During the Italian capitulation in September 1943 she was captured by the Germans while being refitted in Venice. Thereafter, the Germans utilised her as a stationary training ship and, in the final few months of the war, as a coal depot ship and floating bridge. Looted and dilapidated at the end of the war, she was returned to the new Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1946 and rebuilt as Jadran between 1947 and 1949. Between 1949 and 1991, training was mainly conducted in the Adriatic, and she undertook only five long-distance cruises. In 1984 she undertook her first long-distance cruise in two decades.
At the time that the Yugoslav Wars commenced in 1991, Jadran was undergoing a refit at Tivat in the Bay of Kotor, having been transferred from her home port of Split. During the wars she came under the control of rump Yugoslavia. The new state of Croatia requested her return, but this was refused. Her first cruise with the rump Yugoslav Navy was to Greece in 1997. In 2006, Montenegro became independent, and Jadran became a ship of the Montenegrin Navy. She sailed to the UK in 2005 for the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar celebrations, and to Barcelona, Spain in 2008 for the World Conservation Congress.
Jadran ownership remains disputed between Montenegro and Croatia. In December 2021, the two countries agreed to form an inter-governmental commission to resolve her future status.
Background
When the Royal Navy of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (from 1929, the Royal Navy of Yugoslavia) was formed in 1921, it did not have a sailing ship for basic naval training. This was seen as necessary for trainee officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) to learn basic shipboard skills before more advanced training on warships. While under the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye it received some ships from the defeated Austro-Hungarian Navy of World War I, that navy had not possessed a sailing ship for training either. The only ship of this type in service with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was Vila Velebita, which belonged to the merchant fleet, and operated out of the Royal Nautical School at Bakar. While Vila Velebita could be shared by the navy, this arrangement was not suitable due to the limited time she was available and because she was too small for their purposes.
The Royal Yugoslav Army was allocated the vast majority of military funding, leaving the navy without sufficient funds to purchase a sufficiently large sailing training ship. Therefore, in 1925 the semi-official Yugoslav naval association, Jadranska straža (Adriatic Guard), launched an appeal for donations in order to purchase such a ship. However, between 1926 and around August 1930, only one million Yugoslav dinars had been raised of the eight million dinars needed. Despite the shortfall, the Ministry of the Army and Navy then allocated an initial sum of four million dinars for the planned sailing training ship. The remaining funds were to be obtained via loans and German World War I reparations to the Kingdom of Serbia, the territory of which was now part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Design and construction Design Jadran was ordered on 4 September 1930 from the H. C. Stülcken Sohn shipyard in Hamburg, Germany, based on plans drawn up by the naval engineer Josip Škarica. The Stülcken shipyard had not built a steel sailing ship since 1902, but the navy had ordered four small tugs from it two years earlier and had been pleased with the vessels when they were delivered. The construction contract specified a price of 580,375 Reichsmarks, which was equivalent to 7,916,052 dinars at that time. She was designed with a clipper bow and counter stern.
Jadran was constructed of steel as a three-mast topsail schooner, although some sources describe her as a barquentine. She had a displacement of , a length overall of , and waterline length of . Her beam was , her draught was forward and aft, with an average draught of , and her hull depth ranged between and . The hull and lower masts were built of Siemens-Martin steel, and there were three steel decks: upper, main, and between-deck. The weather decks were covered with Oregon pine planks. Steel transverse bulkheads divided the hull into compartments, intended to keep the ship afloat even if a compartment was entirely flooded. Both forward and aft collision bulkheads were part of the design. Due to the rough sea conditions in the Adriatic, her anchors and chains were made stronger than was usually required by Norddeutscher Lloyd. She carried of ballast.
Sail plan and engines The sail plan included a total of 12 sails: square sails on the foremast, consisting of a foresail, fore lower topsail and fore upper topsail; gaff sails on all three masts; gaff topsails on the mainmast and mizzen mast; no staysails between the foremast and mainmast; and jib sails between the bowsprit and foremast, consisting of a flying jib, outer jib, jib and fore staysail.
The total sail area was , the main mast was high and the rigging was a total of long. With sails alone, Jadran could reach . The ship had a Linke-Hoffmann-Busch 6-cylinder diesel engine for auxiliary propulsion which generated and under its power alone Jadran could achieve a top speed of . With a full of fuel, the ship's range on the engine alone was at 9 knots and at . Jadran had auxiliary generators for electricity and a steam boiler for heating the engine room and cabins. The exhaust for the auxiliary engine was hidden in the trunk of the mizzen mast, with the opening well above the bridge.
Accommodation, boats and armament The accommodation for the training staff, crew and midshipmen trainees was on the main deck as well as in a deckhouse located between the poop deck and forecastle, covered by the upper deck. The normal crew for non-training voyages was 12 officers, 36 NCOs and 108 sailors. On training voyages, 12 officers, 20 cadets of the Naval Military Academy, 50 cadets from NCO schools, 30 NCOs and 32 sailors was the usual complement. There were cabins for the 12 officers and one guest cabin, with the remaining crew sleeping in hammocks. Only the first and second classes at the Naval Academy trained aboard Jadran, with third class joining warships for training. There were separate messes for officers, trainees, NCOs and sailors. Other spaces included storage holds, washing and changing areas, toilets, offices, two galleys, a bakery, laundry, infirmary and attached sick room, and a brig.
Jadran was initially equipped with seven or eight ship's boats: three cutters, one of which was equipped as a lifeboat, and a second as a motorboat; two yawls; two dinghies; and a ceremonial gig. Most of the boats were hung on davits outboard, and were only brought on deck to secure them in poor weather. The ship held four outboard engines for use with the ship's boats. Her armament consisted to two L/33 saluting guns and two obsolescent Schwarzlose machine guns of World War I vintage, with 56 rifles for the crew. She was fitted with an electrical fire alarm and semi-automatic foam fire suppression systems.
Construction The ship was given the shipyard number 669, and her keel was laid in the third quarter of 1930. Work proceeded apace, and she was launched on 25 June 1931, witnessed by the vice-president of Jadranska straža, Vice-Admiral Nikola Stanković, and was christened Jadran, the Serbo-Croatian word for the Adriatic Sea. Financial issues arising from the Great Depression then impacted the construction, exacerbated by the fall in the value of the German Reichsmark, and the Hoover Moratorium, which released Germany from its obligations to pay World War I reparations owed to Yugoslavia.
Ninety percent completed in 1932, work was stopped until the financial situation could be addressed. A compromise was eventually reached which apparently involved the owner of the shipyard reducing the price. After building resumed, Jadran was completed and ready for sea trials on 15 June 1933. The final cost was 622,743 Reichsmarks or 8,407,030 dinars. Norddeutscher Lloyd rated her "first class for long voyage". Jadran hull was painted white overall, with a green bottom and blue waterline. All masts, yards, gaffs, the bowsprit and the mizzen boom were painted buff.
Voyage to Yugoslavia Once ready, Jadran put to sea with a German merchant crew. On 15 June she accidentally collided with a British merchant ship in fog near Borkum Reef (off Borkum) in the North Sea, and returned to Hamburg under her own power for repairs, which took until 26 June. At 08:00 the following day, she was towed via the River Elbe to the sea, this time with a Yugoslav naval crew under Commander Nikola Krizomali. At 16:30 she was ready to set sail for Yugoslavia, but remained anchored near the light ship Elbe III due to stormy weather. Jadran finally commenced her journey at 10:30 on 29 June, and by 4 July was passing the Portuguese coast. Near Cape Finisterre on the Spanish coast, a wreath was placed in memory of all hands of , a Yugoslav merchant ship which had been lost there on 26 January 1930. On 6 July, Jadran reached Gibraltar and the first radio messages from Yugoslavia were received. The weather improved once she was in the Mediterranean, and she docked at Tunis in the French protectorate of Tunisia on 10 July to replenish. On 15 July, the ship passed through the Strait of Otranto into the Adriatic, and the following day reached the Bay of Kotor, where she was met at Tivat with celebrations. In attendance were the commanding officer of the Maritime Coastal Defence Sector, Rear Admiral Marijan Polić, the commanding officer of the Tivat Arsenal, Captain Rikard Kubin, and the mayor of Tivat. Her voyage to Yugoslavia had been completed in 17 sailing days, at an average speed of .
Krizomali remained the captain of the ship, and she was commissioned into the navy on 19 August. Despite the fact that the donation by Jadranska straža only amounted to one-sixth of her total cost, for political reasons the fiction was maintained that Jadran was donated by them, and on 6 September, Crown Prince Peter's birthday, she was officially "donated" to the navy at Split. The event was attended by: the president of Jadranska straža, Dr Ivo Tartaglia, and many members of the association; Stanković, who was now the commander-in-chief of the navy; and several government ministers or their deputies, along with nearly all of the ships of the fleet. Celebrations, which occurred over three days, included Serbian Orthodox and Catholic services and an open-air concert. Festivities also occurred at Omiš and on the nearby island of Hvar. As a whole, the three days were promoted as the "Adriatic Days", and drew the ire of the Italians, as Jadranska straža referred to the Adriatic as "our sea".
Service history Interwar period