FOREWORD

Our old boat batana, named Zora, which served us faithfully in all past 41 years, needed to be repaired and renewed. Due to several decayed timbers and loosen planks such a renewal would be very extensive and therefore also expensive. After consideration my father proposed to build a new boat rather than restore the old one. Besides that he would kill the boredom that began to affect him since he is retired and proof his technical and manual skills on something bigger and more ambitious. As an expert of ship architecture, researcher of traditional shipbuilding techniques and reconstructor of old ships I accepted my father's suggestion very seriously as a challenge, where I could realize my designing skills, creative talent and sense of aesthetics. The fact, that many types of traditionally built wooden boats and ships began to disappear already in the past century, incouraged us to build a wooden boat. We chose a batana for many reasons, especially because our precedent boat was also of that type and because the resercher Slobodan Simič - Sime emphasized the very close possibility of its extinction. In this way began our adventure, that took us through phases of designing, building and launching of the batana Koštanca.

The purpose and vision of this page is to introduce and to describe all the phases of Koštanca's emergence, where visitors can become familiar with its designing, building, launching, as well as with rowing competition.

Our old batana Zora, when was lastly renewed.

New batana Koštanca.