Tatjana and Andrija Marasovic

For Tatjana Marasovic, owner of the 48.9-metre motor yacht Cristal with her husband Andrija, who also captains the yacht, the path into yacht ownership may have been destiny, but it certainly wasn’t handed to her. “My father had a 20-metre wooden boat in Croatia which he used for weekly charter trips,” she begins. “I worked on board as a waitress – you start from the bottom!”

It’s that ethos, and their combined passion and experience for running yachts as a business, that has helped them not only move up the ladder to a true superyacht of their own, but also to build a charter yacht programme that sees Cristal booked for Croatia charters from season start to end. It’s a highly compelling story in terms not only of how yacht ownership is not solely the preserve of the billionaire elite, but is both accessible and rooted in an industry that has considerable far-reaching benefits for a broad community of people.

A boating partnership

Tatjana and Andrija celebrated 17 years of marriage in 2023, and both had come with boating in their blood. “We’re always embarrassed to say, but we met through yachting,” Tatjana laughs. “Andrija’s father also had a boat that did day charters in Croatia – he was working with his father, and I was working with my father. And although my family is from the same town in Croatia as him, we actually met on an island. I was born and raised in Canada and working on board my father’s boat in Croatia was my summer job – I came here, I met Andrija and I stayed.”

The couple got married in 2006, then Andrija sold his father’s boat and they built their own which they ran as a charter business. That was followed by another, a 36-metre yacht which they built together and worked from 2010 to 2017 before selling that and setting out to build Cristal from scratch. The hull was built in Split, while the interior was built in Krilo Jesenice – a town famous for its boatbuilding, and where the vast majority of Croatian charter yacht owners hail from. “We copy from each other’s designs to some extent,” Tatjana smiles, “although the interior is more about us and what we like.”

Keeping it local

The local boatbuilding sector and the vast yacht charter industry that has sprouted from it is not only a source of great pride for Tatjana and Andrija – and all the other local owners who have built progressively larger yachts and progressively more successful businesses – but also a source of great satisfaction that it is local skills and the local economy that see the benefit. Being a yacht owner, it turns out, is also about being an employer of services and a purchaser of local supplies.

“It has a lot of positive impact,” Tatjana affirms. “A lot of local small mom-and-pop businesses and a lot of trades such as electricans and the like have done very well because they work on one yacht and then they have the experience so they’re called on again. And a lot of the yachts here hire family, so the whole family benefits – it becomes a real family business.”

Broad appeal

Chartering a superyacht like Cristal can deliver a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and Tatjana says that a lot of the charter bookings they take are multi-generational families or groups of friends, and often the trip is centred around a particular celebration such as a 40th or 50th birthday or some other special occasion.

Coupled to that are the spectacular coastlines, islands and cities of Croatia which have made the country a rapidly growing destination for tourists – and for yacht owners and charterers. It’s not that surprising, says Andrija. “We have a lot of heritage and a lot of culture,” he enthuses, “both in terms of archaeology and in terms of food and music. And the food that you eat in Split for example is not the same as the food you will eat in the north of the country – everyone has their own special dishes that they make. And then,” he continues, “there’s the fact that it’s all so untouched. Further, the northbound currents mean the seawater is always clean here.”

Adds Tatjana, “Then there are the other things that make the place special, like I’ve been to Hvar many times but when you see it again you have to look again, and I just find it so nice – the stone streets and the orange rooftops and the little shops that sell silver and coral jewellery that you only get here. That’s special.”

Family values

What is also special is the warm and welcoming atmosphere you feel on the yachts here, and Cristal is no exception. It’s borne from yacht ownership that is rooted in hard work and humble beginnings, and it creates a magic that seeps through to guests on board.

“The yacht is family owned,” says Tatjana, “and it’s ours. It’s not some corporation, and I think we put more love and passion into it, and we want our kids to work and to have a future, because in Croatia it’s hard to find jobs. That’s our goal – everything we do is for our future and our kids.”