{"id":59075,"date":"2024-07-17T12:53:58","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T10:53:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/news-general\/water-depth-privlacki-zaton-nin\/"},"modified":"2025-05-22T10:18:50","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T08:18:50","slug":"water-depth-privlacki-zaton-nin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/news-general\/water-depth-privlacki-zaton-nin\/","title":{"rendered":"Excavation work in the fairway of Privla\u010dki gaz: <\/span><\/span>Water depth now three metres between Privla\u010dki zaton and the Bay of Nin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Update 20.05.2025<\/h4>\n

Sports skippers coming from the Velebitski Canal and heading southwest to Privla\u010dki Zaton south of the island of Vir must continue to sail around the entire island of Vir in an anti-clockwise direction, passing through Ljubacki Zaljev and Ninski Zaljev. The authorities initially stated that “following dredging and excavation work in recent months”, the strait “can now officially be navigated by larger boats”. However, this statement has now been qualified by a recent statement from Oleg Butkovi\u0107, Minister of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Infrastructure<\/a>. It states that “final technical examinations with information on the opening for shipping” would only take place “at the end of May”. “Certain points” are still being checked and “technical inspections” will be carried out at the end of this month at the earliest so that the canal is “navigable for the coming tourist season”. According to Oleg Butkovi\u0107, when the canal is finally opened, it will be “on average three meters” instead of the previous half a meter. What is certain is that the canal has still not been officially reopened, although several authorities claim that the work has already been completed. So it remains exciting. SeaHelp will report on the definitive opening of the canal here as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Update 01.10.2024<\/h4>\n

As reported by plovput.hr, the Croatian company for the maintenance of sea waterways, the Privla\u010dki Gas Canal has been temporarily closed to shipping again since Monday, September 16, 2024. The reason given was the “continuation of the final work” for the intended permanent passage of boats and yachts in the near future. All light markers marking the lateral boundaries of the canal have been removed and light buoys have been placed at the approaches to the canal from the east and west to mark the seaward area of the construction site. It has not been announced when the work will be completed or when the canal will be reopened. SeaHelp will provide up-to-date information here.\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Sports skippers coming from the Velebitski Canal and heading south-west to Privla\u010dki Zaton south of the island of Vir previously had to sail anti-clockwise around the entire island of Vir, passing through Ljubacki Zaljev and Ninski Zaljev. This is now a thing of the past. Following dredging and excavation work in recent months, the strait can now officially be navigated by larger boats. This saves a lot of time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The reason for the need for a wide bypass was the 433 metre long arched bridge of Vir, which has connected the island of the same name with the mainland since 1976, or more precisely: the Privla\u010dki gaz strait underneath it, because this fairway had been officially closed since 2015 (as correctly stated in the Coastal Handbook Croatia and Slovenia \/ Koper – Split from Edition Maritim, among others). Reason: too shallow, too rocky, too dangerous – at least for larger boats.<\/p>\n

Despite the closure – and sporadic checks by the coastguard – many skippers have travelled this fairway in recent years, sometimes with the outboard engines raised, and often enough have scratched the underwater hull or sheared off the propeller. Sand and stones have been removed from time to time, they say, but only to a small extent.<\/p>\n

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The sea route has been deepened and widened to allow larger boats to pass through safely<\/h2>\n

This is now a thing of the past. The SeaHelp operations team from Zadar travelled the fairway under the bridge of Vir with one of the rescue boats at the beginning of July 2024. Their conclusion: “The sea route has been deepened and widened to allow larger boats to pass through safely”<\/em>, according to the Help Line of SeaHelp Adria in Punat<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This statement is also underpinned by a recently published report by Plovput. Plovput is a Croatian company that is active in the maintenance of waterways and the operation of lighthouses, among other things. Founded in 1992 and based in Split, the company also rents out lighthouses as high-quality tourist accommodation.<\/p>\n

According to the expert opinion, Privla\u010dki gaz is a “shallow sea passage between Privla\u010dki zaton and the Bay of Nin, located between the shores of the mainland and the island of Vir”. This channel was previously “only navigable for smaller boats”, as the depth of the passage was less than 0.5 metres in some places.<\/p>\n

The passage used to be marked with concrete blocks and wooden piles<\/h2>\n

Navigation at this point is also limited by the height of the Vir Island bridge over Privla\u010dki gaz, which is nine metres. The passage was once “marked with concrete blocks and wooden piles”, but these had “worn away” at some point.<\/p>\n

Interesting for sports skippers who also want to navigate the fairway with larger boats: the report states the current dimensions of the “new Privla\u010dki gaz canal”, which has been achieved in recent months “through sand scooping, blasting and excavation of stone material”.<\/p>\n

According to the report, the current length of the canal is now 1,740 metres, the width of the canal is given as 40 metres (with the exception of the point between the bridge’s supporting pillars, where it is 38 metres), and very importantly, the minimum depth of the canal is now given as three metres, calculated from the hydrographic zero point. The maximum clearance height of the bridge is still specified as nine metres.<\/p>\n

The canal is now 1,740 metres long, max. 40 metres wide and at least three metres deep, with traffic in both directions<\/h2>\n

Navigation through the canal is now officially open again, with traffic travelling in both directions, and there are plans to install two boards\/markers on the fences of the bridge on the south and north sides to indicate the middle and free height of the passage.<\/p>\n

The deepening of Privla\u010dki gaz has another positive side effect, according to the aforementioned report: the excavated material, estimated at 34,611 cubic metres in total, will be used to fill the surrounding beaches with high-quality sand material, including the beaches of the town of Nin, the beaches of the municipality of Privlaka and the beaches of the municipality of Vir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Update 20.05.2025 Sports skippers coming from the Velebitski Canal and heading southwest to Privla\u010dki Zaton south of the island of Vir must continue to sail around the entire island of Vir in an anti-clockwise direction, passing through Ljubacki Zaljev and Ninski Zaljev. The authorities initially stated that “following dredging and excavation work in recent months”, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":59071,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[176],"class_list":["post-59075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-general","tag-croatia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63702,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59075\/revisions\/63702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sea-help.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}