Mario Puratić
The invention of a Croat contributed so much to the development of a branch of the world economy that thanks to one (though not the only) invention he was the inventor of the year in the USA, became an honorary citizen of Iceland, and his invention was on the back of the five Canadian dollar bill.
It was Mario Puratić, born in Sumartin on the island of Brač on June 23, 1904. The difficult life on the island forced him to look for happiness and a better future far from his homeland, so at the age of 25 he emigrated from his Sumartin to the United States of America.
He did hard physical work there, was a port worker in New York, also worked in a steel plant, and after World War II he moved to Los Angeles, specifically to San Pedro, home to a large number of Croats. It is interesting that in San Pedro some streets are named after Croats, the bridge connecting San Pedro and Long Beach is named after the Croat Vice Tomaš, and on Catalina Island near San Pedro, in 1894, the first white girl in the history of that island was born and was is the daughter of Croats from Hvar, where Puratić was from.
Puratić worked there as a fisherman and while working on a tuna boat, he encountered the biggest problem of that time, how to get a net with a huge amount of fish out of the sea. It was extremely demanding physical work that required a large number of workers.
Mario Puratić solved that problem with an invention he patented in 1954. This invention is known as Puratić’s winch (Power block or Puratic Power block). This windlass represents a huge revolution for the world’s fisheries and this invention is as important for fisheries as the invention of electricity for the whole of humanity. Thanks to this invention, Peru increased its fish catch by 300%, and the same was the case in other countries where the winch began to be used.
Puratić’s winch allowed a three times smaller crew to catch three times more fish in the same amount of time than was possible at the time of manually pulling fish out of the sea. Puratić’s winch is suitable for all boats and for catching various types of fish. Also, the application of this winch enabled the use of large synthetic nets over 18 meters wide, which was unthinkable in the case of manual fish extraction, and this automation of extraction reduced the risk of damage due to shark attacks on caught fish, because the extraction is performed significantly faster.
Marija Puratić’s invention has been used in Croatian fisheries since 1963.
In less than 10 years, this Croatian invention spread all over the world, to all continents and countries engaged in fishing, and was introduced to all the world’s fishing fleets. There are several models and versions of Puratić’s winch that can be found today, in various versions, on more than 12,000 ships sailing in various world seas. Thanks to this invention, Mario Puratić was declared inventor of the year in the USA in 1975 for his services in the “advancement of science and technology”, and he was also included in the hundred most famous inventors of the USA in the twentieth century.
The picture of a fishing boat, a trawler, with Puratić’s winch in the foreground, was on the 5 Canadian dollar banknote, put into circulation in 1972. The popularity of Puratić’s invention is also evidenced by the fact that he was declared an honorary citizen of Iceland.
In addition to the mentioned winch, Mario Puratić applied for twenty more patents, mostly in the field of fishing.
Precise information about his death is not known, it is known that he died in the late eighties or early nineties of the twentieth century, and was buried on his native Brač in 1994, as soon as it was possible to organize a burial due to the Homeland War.