FAMOUS CROATS, Mario Puratić

Mario Puratić (Sumartin, 1904 – Santa Barbara, USA, 1993) was a giant of Croatian and global maritime culture and history. Born into a modest family of fishermen and laborers in Sumartin on the island of Brač, he emigrated at an early age to the United States, where his creativity and vision made him a world-renowned inventor. The experience of hard labor on California tuna boats in the mid-20th century awakened Puratić’s innate spirit of invention, leading him to design a device for hauling fishing nets from the sea. Until then, nets were pulled manually, requiring extreme strength and endurance. In 1954, his ingenuity and entrepreneurship led to the invention known as the Puretic Power Block (using the Americanized version of his surname). The Power Block is a pulley with a grooved rubber-coated wheel, designed to be suspended above the stern deck. Initially rope-driven and later hydraulic, it enables nets to be hauled with minimal human effort. This simple yet highly effective device, primarily intended for commercial fishing with purse seines, drastically reduced unloading time, decreased the number of crew needed and permanently eased fishermen’s work. The Power Block was produced by the Seattle-based company MARCO (Marine Construction & Design Company), which further developed it in cooperation with the inventor. The use of the Power Block fundamentally transformed fishing and significantly increased its efficiency worldwide. On the Croatian Adriatic, the device, popularly known as purić, came into use in 1963, by which time thousands of vessels globally had been already equipped with it. Puratić received recognition for his contribution to the advancement of science and technology in the United States in 1975, when he was named Inventor of the Year, and he also became an honorary citizen of Iceland. The significance of his invention is reflected in the fact that, in 1972, Canada issued a five-dollar banknote depicting a fishing vessel equipped with a Power Block. By the end of his life, he had registered more than twenty patents with the U.S. Patent Office, mostly related to improvements in fishing equipment. He died in Santa Barbara, but found his eternal resting place in the “beloved homeland”. Today, a stone bust of Puratić stands on the Sumartin waterfront, and the local Fisheries Interpretation Center “Kuća od 5 dolori” is dedicated to him. Ida Jakšić, Museum Advisor Ethnographic Museum Split