Pletna Traditional Boat Lake Bled Slovenia

The Pletna boat is a wooden boat 7 meters long and 2 meters wide. It is operated by the Pletna oarsman, standing and rowing the boat with two oars. This type of vessel is an attraction of Lake Bled and according to the unverified date, its history is supposed to go back already to the 12th century, while the official beginnings date back to 1740.
The Pletna boat is a wooden flat-boat with a pointed bow and the stern widened with a step to enable passengers to enter. The boat is propelled with the special ‘’stehrudder’’ technique where the oarsman is standing and rowing with two oars.
Our ancestors took the name after the German word ‘’plateboat’’, meaning flat-bottom boat. The rights to ownership of the Pletna boat and the lake transport were granted during the reign of Empress Maria Theresia to the farms who complained about the loss of arable land. Most of them originate from Mlino village on the southeastern coast of Lake Bled. Today there are 23 Pletnas and boatmen work inside an association Pletna Bled.
Pletna je 7 metrov dolg in okoli 2 metra širok lesen čoln, ki ga pletnar stoje poganja z vesli. Ta vrsta plovila je zanimivost Blejskega jezera, njegova zgodovina pa naj bi po nepreverjenih podatkih segala že v 12. stoletje, uradni začetki pa segajo v leto 1740.
To je leseno plovilo z ravnim dnom, na premcu se špičasto zaključi, na krmi pa je razširjeno z značilnim pragom, ki potnikom omogoča vstopanje na pletno. Čoln se poganja s posebno tehniko ti.: »Stehrudder tehnik« se pravi stoje.
Ime pletna so naši predniki povzeli po nemški besedi »plateboot«, ki pomeni čoln z ravnim dnom.
Pravice za lastništvo pletne in za prevoz po jezeru so bile podeljene v času vladavine cesarice Marije Terezije in sicer kmetom, ki so dobili dodeljeno slabšo obdelovalno zemljo. Po večini so ti izhajali iz vasice Mlino na jugovzhodni obali Blejskega jezera. Danes je v jezeru 23 pleten in čolnarji delujejo znotraj čolnarskega združenja pletna Bled.
Bled, 11.11.2018