At the beginning of February Jadrolinija chose suppliers of two new catamarans, and two used ones, and none of them come from Croatia. Dutch shipyard Damen was awarded the EUR 11.5 million contract to construct two new vessels, and the TB Shipyards from Harlingen will sell two used catamarans to the Croatian shipping company, at EUR 7.3 million each. Total value of the contract will come to EUR 37.6 million, or Kn 282 million, including the VAT.

Spectators are surprised that there were no bids submitted by any Croatian shipyards, which would normally jump at a chance to supply the national shipping lane with new ships. But they also claim the reason for this was the conditions of the tender as written. Director of Šibenik NCP Shipyard, Mr Roko Vuletić, confirmed that his company, just as any other Croatian shipyard, could not meet the delivery deadlines as set in the tender. According to the tender, the supplier should deliver one new catamaran of 40 meters and 400 seat capacity until 15 July, and the other until the end of the year. Also, a supplier must prove that it has previously constructed at least three such vessels, which no local shipyard can do.

According to Mr Vuletić, even if a shipyard had a complete set of blueprints and documents ready for construction of such a vessel, a 40-meter catamaran would require at least nine months to produce from the order of supplies. Although the NCP so far constructed 70 aluminum catamarans for Norwegian customers, it cannot produce one in such a short time frame. Mr Vuletić thinks this makes it clear that the intention behind the tender was to buy a finalized vessel from a producer that has a catamaran almost ready at a particular stage of construction.

Jadrolinija, on the other hand, stated that it was aware that the Croatian shipyards did not produce fast aluminum ships. On the other hand, Jadrolinija forms a part of the overall tourist offering so it had to modernize its fleet and have it function impeccably.