Obrt Leut
Soline 5, Dobrinj, Croatia, 51514 · +385 91 122 1510
My Honest Recommendation for Boat Owners – When You Need Someone You Can Trust
One of the things I especially love about our area is that there are still people who didn't learn their trade from a manual or a crash course, but inherited it from their parents and grandparents. That kind of knowledge can't be bought or learned overnight. It's built up over years – by the sea, in the boatyard, and through countless hours of work with your own hands.
One such family is the Mihajić family, who run the Leut boatyard in Soline.
Their story didn't begin yesterday. The business was founded by Slavko's father, who devoted his whole life to building and restoring wooden boats. He passed his love of the sea and boatbuilding on to his son Slavko, and today that same story continues through Slavko's sons. It's rare to see a tradition preserved across as many as three generations, but that's exactly what makes this family special.
I was especially delighted by an article published a while ago on the local news site FANOT, telling the story of young Marin Mihajić. After finishing technical school as a shipbuilding technician, he decided to further develop his skills right there in the family business. With the help of his father Slavko, his brother, and his grandfather Ivo, he began restoring and building a wooden "pašara" (a traditional small boat).
The most beautiful part of that story isn't the pašara itself, but the fact that Ivo's grandfather, already in his eighties at the time, took part in building it too. A man who'd spent his whole life by the sea and among wooden boats followed every detail closely, from the first structural elements right through to the final finishing touches, passing his experience on to younger generations. Values like that are increasingly rare today, which is exactly why they're worth preserving.
Most of my guests, though, won't need a new wooden boat built. What they might need is a reliable person to help when something goes wrong with their boat, or when they simply want to enjoy their holiday without a worry.
If you're spending your holiday around Soline, Čižići, or Klimno and arriving with your own speedboat or boat, it's good to have the number of someone who knows the sea, engines, boats, and local conditions. Unplanned situations happen to everyone at sea. Sometimes it's a small thing, sometimes a breakdown that could ruin your whole holiday. That's exactly when it matters most to have someone nearby who knows what they're doing.
That's why I often recommend Slavko. Not because he's my neighbour, but because I know how seriously he takes his work and how many times he's helped people exactly when they needed it most.
His services are especially valuable outside the summer season. Every autumn, many boat owners go through the same tiring process – hauling the boat out, transporting it on a trailer, finding a place to store it for winter, bringing it back in spring, and launching it again. That's not just a matter of time but of extra cost too, and driving a car with a trailer and a boat isn't easy for everyone. Manoeuvring, parking, and long drives are often more stressful than the boat maintenance itself.
That's why there's a much simpler solution.
With Leut you can arrange winter storage for your boat, along with regular upkeep throughout the winter. When spring comes and you feel like spending a weekend or a holiday on Krk, all you need to do is let them know you're coming. Your boat will be waiting for you, ready and prepared to head out to sea. After your holiday, you simply take your personal belongings and leave the rest to the people who look after boats all year round.
This way of using a boat saves many owners a great deal of time, brings less worry, and makes for a far more pleasant start to every holiday.
On this page, I only recommend people I'd trust with my own boat without hesitation, or turn to for help if I needed it. For me, Leut isn't just a workshop where boats get repaired or maintained. It's a family story spanning decades, a story of knowledge passed down from generation to generation, and of people who still believe that any job is best done honestly and thoroughly.
If you're arriving on the island of Krk with your own boat, or thinking about where to safely leave it between seasons, I believe it's good to have a contact who knows the sea just as well as they know every piece of wood a traditional Krk boat was once made from. That's exactly why Leut is among my honest recommendations.
More From the Workshop
Contact — Leut
Soline 5, Dobrinj, Croatia, 51514
Tel: +385 91 122 1510