It was the largest ship in the world and everything about it was extraordinary.
Berge Istra was the first of eleven combined mega tankers built in the early seventies of the last century at the Uljanik shipyard in Pula.
This monstrosity of 314 meters in length, 50 meters in width and 26 meters in height, which in 1972, when it was launched, made it the largest ship in the world, was the pride of Yugoslav shipbuilding, especially the city of Pula and every resident of the Istrian city.
"As a child, during a walk on the waterfront, we watched that ship emerge, you pass by that monstrosity for five minutes.
"It seems to you that there is no end, it looks incredible to you then, like some kind of Giant," Puležan Dražen Majić beamingly explains how that image remained etched in his memory for the rest of his life.
He is the author and director of a documentary film Berge Istria, with whom we are talking in Vodnjan, near Pula.
The sinking of the ship at the very beginning of 1976, under officially unexplained circumstances, shocked and stunned the entire country, especially the coastal city of Pula.
"This ship is one of the biggest myths of the former country, that is, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and especially in Pula because it was built here.
"The myth became more entangled around his disappearance, with everything that followed him, than about anything else, especially since the Pula couple Egidio and Carmen Ševrlica also lost their lives during his sinking," explains Pula journalist Zoran Angeleski, co-writer of the documentary. Berge Istria.
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Due to the great importance and reputation that a relatively small shipyard such as Uljanik achieved with the construction of this ship, it was decided that the godmother of the ship that will be named after it will be Jovanka Broz, the first lady of the SFRY and the wife of the lifelong president Josip Broz Tito.
That Saturday, January 15, 1972, the whole of Pula was on the streets.
People crowded around and looked for the best possible position from which to observe the launch of Berga Istra.
The entire Yugoslav state leadership, led by Tito, was on the docks of Uljanik.
"I give you Berge Istria with the desire to carry it to the pride of your builders on all the seas and oceans you will sail on.
"I wish your sailors and officers always good seas and happy sailing", said Jovanka Broz at the launching ceremony.
After the speech, she approached the place where a bottle of champagne was tied with a string.
She cut the ribbon.
The bottle flew awkwardly through the air.
There was the sound of glass breaking on the stern, but the ship didn't move.
Due to the extremely cold winter and temperatures as low as five degrees below zero, which is unimaginable cold for this coastal city, the lubricant on the ramps, from which the ship was supposed to slide into the sea, froze and the Berge Istra remained motionless.
"The ship was launched a month later when it warmed up a bit and the lubricant loosened, although the sabotage units of the Yugoslav People's Army came to the rescue and helped the Berge Istra slide off the slipway into the sea with controlled explosions," explains Mladen Klasić, the ship's designer and the then sales director of the Uljanik shipyard, for the BBC in Serbian.
How did it all begin?
The deal with the Norwegian ship-owning company Bergesena, on the construction of four identical combined megatankers, Berge Istra, Berge Adrije, Berge Briona and Berge Vanga, was concluded in 1969.
Just two years earlier, the Suez Canal was closed, which, due to Israel's attack on Egypt and the beginning of the so-called Six-Day War, lasted until 1975.
The Suez Canal is an artificial canal in Egypt between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, which separates Africa and Asia and is the shortest waterway between Europe and the Persian Gulf, South Asia and India.
"Oil transportation from the Persian Gulf then had to go around Africa and the Cape of Good Hope.
"Instead of 6.000 miles and 36 sailing days, tankers sailing between the Persian Gulf and Europe had to circle and cover a distance of 12.000 miles and sail for 60 days," he explains in the book. "Norwegian ship transport in 2O. century" Stig Tenold, professor of economic history at the Faculty of Economics in Oslo.
He adds that the closure of the Suez Canal significantly contributed to the building of larger ships, but also new types of vessels, and that maritime economist Martin Stopford called this process "the industrial revolution of shipping".
This period marks the beginning of increasing demand for colossal tankers for the combined transportation of oil and bulk cargo.
In this way, ship owners wanted to make the transportation of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe, which now had to go around Africa, faster and cheaper.
The advantage of combined tankers was that they could transport oil in one direction and bulk cargo, mainly iron ore, in the other, which made shipping cheaper because there was no so-called idling.
At that time, no shipyard had extensive experience in building such megatankers, so space was opened for ambitious shipyards from smaller countries, such as Yugoslavia.
The Uljanik Shipyard is confidently entering into the construction business because only a few years ago it mastered the technique of making ships from two parts that were subsequently assembled, that is, welded using a special technique in the sea.
"When we saw that we could build ships from two parts, we realized that we had the capacity to join the race on the market and produce megatankers with a capacity of 220.000 tons, which were then the most competitive and for which there was the greatest demand," says constructor Klasić. today a 95-year-old pensioner from Zagreb.
He created a project that envisioned megatankers being powered by a diesel engine instead of the previous steam or turbine engines.
"However, manufacturers at that time did not have large enough diesel engines, so one of the options was to install two such engines in the megatanker.
"In order for them to be mounted in the ship without losing the cargo space, it was necessary to construct a new, innovative and completely different stern compared to the ones ships had until then," explains Klasić.
He adds that he then designed a stern with two strong aft ends or a double stern in which diesel engines could be mounted without losing cargo space.
"It was a revolution in shipbuilding.
"The solution that was designed and first implemented in Uljanik in Pula was later used by other shipyards in the world," Klasić points out.
Success despite problems
However, not everything went smoothly when it came to the creation of the Berge Istra legend.
The deal with Bergesen about the delivery of four ships, already at the start, runs into a problem and is threatened with a total fiasco.
Jugobanka, which then financed the export of shipbuilding, did not want to give guarantees for the construction of ships and the implementation of the work.
"At that time, and even today, shipbuilding works by having a bank approve financial guarantees for the construction of a ship, and later it is collected from the sale of that ship.
"That's how it worked in SFR Yugoslavia until the deal with Bergesen," recalls Klasić.
As the main reason for the cancellation of these guarantees, he cites the political turmoil at that time in Yugoslavia and the struggle between the liberal part of the Union of Communists of Yugoslavia and the traditional part, and therefore the conflict between the republics.
"Bergesen was so enthusiastic and interested in these innovations that he decided to finance the work himself," says Klasić.
He also explains that Uljanik is ordering new equipment, i.e. 45-ton cranes and widening the ramps, due to contracted new jobs, but that the delivery of the equipment is delayed.
"Uljanik is wasting time and not starting the construction of Berga Istra, the first of the four contracted ships," emphasizes Klasić.
He underlines that Bergesen meets Uljanik again and accepts the delay and increased costs and finances everything himself.
"Four ships Berge Istra, Berge Adria, Berge Brioni and Berge Vanga, which were built by Uljanik, were delivered to Bergesen, without the Yugoslav financial system giving us a single penny for that work," says Klasić.
He points out that the construction of ships continued even after the ships were delivered to Bergesen and that then, in a similar way as with Bergesen, a deal was concluded with a Swedish ship-owning company to which three ships were delivered.
"I contracted the construction of the last four ships by paying in cash without credit at prices that were twice, and even two and a half times higher than the production costs," says Klasić.
He points out that at that time the cost of producing one ship was about 24 or 28 million dollars, depending on the size, because Uljanik built ships in two sizes, and that the selling price was 63 million dollars and that was paid in advance.
"I thought that concluding these successful deals would ensure my professional future in the shipyard, however, since I was not a member of the Communist Party, I was dismissed in 1974 and literally kicked out of the shipyard," says Klasić.
The disappearance of the greatest
Just two years later, right before New Year 1976, the giant ship Berge Istra was lost.
It was en route from Tubarao, Brazil to Japan and was carrying iron ore.
The last contact with the ship was made by the Japanese on December 29, 1975, when it was in the Pacific Ocean, in an area known as Devil's Sea, near the Philippine island of Mindanao.
Days pass, and the ship does not appear in the Japanese port of Kimizu.
On the eighth day after communication with the Berge Istra was lost, the ship owner Bergesen realized the seriousness of the situation and informed the Norwegian diplomatic missions in the US and Japan that he had lost contact with the ship.
A little later, on the same day, he informs the media about the ship's disappearance.
The search for the Berge Istra was launched only two days later, on January 9, 1976 - even 11 days after the ship's disappearance.
It was an unprecedented search.
Aviation, navy, rescuers were engaged, but everything was in vain, there was no sign of the ship.
The search was called off four days later.
There were 33 crew members on board, including two from Pula, who are also considered missing.
Already on January 19, 1976, four days after the termination of portage, the British insurance company Lloyds declared the ship Berge Istra missing and paid Bergesen the largest compensation in history.
"After the Berge Istra sank, the domestic, Yugoslav press wrote about it quite professionally.
"Journalists called captains, maritime experts, shipbuilders and there were fantastic texts," says journalist Angeleski.
Nevertheless, these events, as well as the secrecy of the Bergesen company and its owner Sigval Bergesen, who all the time makes few announcements, ignite the imagination of both the people of Pula and the whole of Yugoslavia.
The most fantastic theories about the sinking of the Berga Istra are lined up, from a terrorist attack to financial benefit and insurance collection.
On the twenty-first day after the disappearance of Berga Istra, on January 20, 1976, Japanese fishermen found two surviving sailors.
They were Spaniards Imeldo Bareto Leon and Epifanio Perdomo Lopez.
The duo spent 20 days on the life raft, with meager supplies of water and food pellets.
According to their testimony in the documentary film by Pula journalists, the sinking of the Berga Istra was preceded by several explosions.
"These two, by a play of fate, have completely different characters and in a way, in that three-week fight for life, they are yin and yang.
"Imeldo is calm, rational, knows how to survive because he went fishing with his father, while Epifanio is funny, temperamental," Angelski recalls his impressions after meeting the survivors in Tenerife during the filming of the documentary.
"What is interesting is that the two of them only confirmed our theory, which we developed during the filming of the film, that in fact the cause of the sinking of the Berga Istra was greed and the fact that it was non-stop repaired, remade, refined, that it was welded during navigation, and that the attitude and approach to the gas neutralization system was unprofessional and nonchalant," points out Angelski.
He adds that, after the oil is released, the gases remain in the tanks and it is extremely risky to carry out modifications on the ship, especially welding, which was the case with the Berge Istra, and later with the Berge Wang, which also sank under officially unexplained circumstances in 1979.
When Berge Vanga sank, all 30 crew members lost their lives.
And this ship was sailing from Brazil to Japan and was carrying iron ore.
"Witnesses in a port in Brazil say they saw welders boarding a ship," Angelski says.
After the Berge Wang tragedy in 1979, the production of combined tankers was banned, and the Uljanik shipyard never repeated the success it achieved in the early 1970s.
The dizzying development of Pula
While ships with names of Istrian toponyms sail the seas of the world, the dizzying development of the city of Pula begins.
Uljanik is the backbone of the city.
In addition to financing the construction of apartments for workers, new schools, kindergartens, sports fields, as well as hotel complexes and resorts are springing up.
The city begins to live a new life.
Uljanik also invests in culture.
In the Uljanik club, opposite the shipyard, all important musical groups of the former SFRY perform.
"We also have the Yugoslav Feature Film Festival, which in those years becomes a glamorous stage.
"Our most important actors parade in the pool. And not just the actors," says Angeleski.
President Tito brings world statesmen to Pula, such as the legendary commander of the Cuban revolution, Che Guevara, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, as well as the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.
"Probably the close proximity to Brion, where Tito has a residence, contributed to this to a large extent, but during those years Pula became, one can safely say, a fashionable place," says Angelski.
He adds that he, as well as his generation, experienced and lived in that atmosphere since childhood.
"As kids, still in elementary school, we used to hang around the Arena. Summer, people, we literally stayed up until midnight or longer.
"We grew up with that glamor and all that was happening in Pula, completely unaware of all that until all the madness of the nineties and later hit us," Angelski explains.
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Dražen Majić says that the city flourished in those years.
"It's as if some super business came and raised the whole city.
"Buildings were built for the workers of Uljanik, several new schools, sports stadiums, hotels, it was literally the pinnacle of Yugoslav shipbuilding," explains Majić.
And the dream job in Pula did come.
According to Mladen Klasić, in the early 1970s, Uljanik made an annual profit of 125 million dollars.
"It's a fantasy - on the construction of the last four combined megatankers, Uljanik actually made a hundred percent profit.
"At that time, when production was stabilized, with the construction of two large ships per year, Uljanik had a gross income of 125 million dollars, which today would be about one and a half billion dollars on an annual basis," Klasić points out and adds that these are unimaginable sums. money.
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Sunovrat Uljanika and Pula
The situation today is drastically different.
While we are talking with the authors of the film Berge Istra in Vodnjan near Pula, the pride of their city is hardly working.
The restructuring of Uljanik has been going on for years, it is in bankruptcy and is being tried its privatization.
The very fact that Uljanik, from a world brand, which competed side by side with the most prominent shipyards on the world market, in just 50 years fell to the point where it is currently languishing and waiting for an investor to take pity and buy it, encouraged Majić and Angelski to make a film together with Croatian Radio and Television Berge Istria.
"That timing is very important for the realization of the film. The downfall of Uljanik is coming. You have strikes, protests.
"Something that is the backbone of our city suddenly broke," says Majić.
He adds that this is precisely why the film achieved incredible success, especially in Pula.
"The projection in the Pula Arena was the most important for us, because we are from Pula and the Arena is the end of the world for us, the peak beyond which there is no further.
"Having a band and playing in the Arena or having a film and showing it in the Arena is for us the biggest thing you can achieve in your career," explains Majić.
He recalls people crying.
Some left the screening because, due to the strong emotions that came over them, they could not watch the film to the end.
"When we were handing out free tickets to the people of Uljanik on the Pula Corso, one of them told me: 'The sinking of the Berga Istra is a tragedy, and the sinking of the Uljanika is a shame,'" concludes Angelski.
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