The Goulandris, Embiricos and Polemis Families

The very beautiful island of Andros in the Aegean is the northern most of the Cyclades Group of islands and the second largest, after Naxos, with a width of 40 kilometres at its widest point and a length of 17 kilometres at its longest. The main port of the island is Gavrio with frequent ferry connections to Piraeus. The island is home to three shipping families, all operating huge fleets that were in the top ten of Greek shipping companies at some point during their long existence. The families are the Embiricos, Goulandris and Polemis families.

GOULANDRIS FAMILY OF ANDROS SHIPOWNERS

Basil J. Goulandris was born on Andros in 1886 as one of five sons of Andriot shipowner John P. Goulandris, and served as a seafarer on his family sailing ships and steamers until in 1909 at the age of 23 years he obtained his Master’s ticket and commanded one of the first family steam tramps, continuing in command during World War I. After the war, together with his brothers Peter, Michael, Nikolaos and Leonidas he founded the big fleet of Goulandris Brothers Ltd. with offices in Piraeus and London. Seven tramps were traded in 1932 named Euthalia, Theomitor, Frangoula B. Goulandris, George J. Goulandris, Ioannis P. Goulandris, Marionga J. Goulandris and Violando N. Goulandri. The oldest of this septet was built back in 1898, while the newest were ‘War’ ‘A’ standard ships built in 1918 and 1919.

A large fleet of Goulandris Brothers Ltd. slow steaming steam tramps was decimated by the wolf packs of U-boats during World War II, and Basil, Nikolaos and Leonidas purchased war standard tramps to rebuild their shattered fleet, and traded them on Transatlantic routes to a large degree to Canada, where new businesses were set up by his son John, who had moved to live there. Greek Line had been set up in 1939 by Vassilis Goulandris, son of Peter J. Goulandris and Chrysa Dambassi, and his four brothers to operate the passenger liner New Hellas of 16,991 grt, built in 1922 as Tuscania for Anchor Line and later renamed New York, as a troopship on worldwide Allied convoys. Three further liners were used on the Transatlantic route from Greece to New York after the end of the war, named Katoomba (later Columbia), Neptunia and Canberra.

Leonidas Goulandris, brother of Basil J. Goulandris purchased Greek Line in 1952, and immediately ordered a new passenger liner to be named Olympia for delivery in 1953.

OLYMPIA and OTHER LINERS of GREEK LINE

She was the pride and joy of Greek Line when she sailed on her maiden voyage on 15th October 1953 from Glasgow and then Liverpool to New York on regular Transatlantic voyages until she became a seasonal cruise ship in 1961. She did not begin her intended service from Piraeus to New York until March 1955 due to legal reasons and complications. She was launched at the Linthouse yard of Alexander Stephen & Sons on the Clyde on 16th April 1953 and when completed had accommodation for 1,475 passengers and a crew of 900. She measured 22,979 grt on dimensions of overall length 611.0 feet with a draft of 28.0 feet, and on trials achieved 23.0 knots from Parsons steam turbines with a service speed of 21 knots. She was the only new twin screw ship completed for Greek Line, being registered in Monrovia from 1953 to 1968, and then Andros from 1968 to 1981. The Piraeus to New York route included several intermediate ports of call including Pier 21 at Halifax (NS), and the route was extended to Haifa in 1961.

Olympia went cruising for much of the year in her latter years until she was laid up at Piraeus at the end of 1974, with Greek Line suffering financial collapse shortly afterwards. She was purchased by Sally Line of Sweden in late 1981 and came out of lay-up in 1983 under the name of Caribe, with more economical diesel engines replacing her steam turbines. Most of her public rooms, except her library, on Transatlantic service were changed into extra suites for passengers or had complete make-overs into casinos, for her new use as a floating hotel and a seasonal cruise ship in the Commodore Cruise Line fleet from the Bahamas to the Caribbean. Two changes of new funnels altered her appearance in the 1980s, and she was sold again in 1993 to Regal Cruises and renamed Regal Empress for winter cruising out of Port Manatee on the south side of Tampa Bay in Florida on short Caribbean cruises, and in summer she cruised out of New York to warmer climates. She sailed for Imperial Majesty Cruise Line on a two night cruise schedule from 2003 to the Bahamas. I was fortunate to see her at Port Manatee around the time of the Millennium, her appearance and outline remained as Olympia to my mind. She made her final cruise on 6th March 2009, and was broken up in the second half of 2009.

Arkadia was purchased in 1958 and gave eight years of service to Greek Line, but also had a very important career before this as the three funnelled Monarch of Bermuda built in 1931 on the Tyne for the New York to Bermuda service of Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd. She was built as a quadruple screw liner with eight water tube boilers arranged in groups of four in two boiler rooms, burning oil fuel with the steam then passed through turbines which were coupled to electric generators and then to electric motors at the stern of the liner to turn her four propellers. She was also all electric in her galleys, and the passenger cabins had electric cooling fans and heaters for her luxury service. She was of 22,424 grt with a length between perpendiculars of 553.2 feet, moulded beam of 76.7 feet, moulded depth of 29.0 feet and a loaded draft of 27.1 feet. Unfortunately, she was destroyed by fire at the yard of her builders on the Tyne during her post-war renovation after troopship service. She was sold to the Ministry of Transport and renamed New Australia for emigrant service to Australia. In 1958, she was sold to Greek Line and renamed Arkadia and served until broken up in 1966 at Valencia.

The Greek Line Lakonia had been built in 1930 as the Dutch liner Johan van Oldenbarnevelt of 19,040 grt as the largest Dutch liner built to that date with accommodation for a total of 770 people on her route from Holland to the Dutch East Indies. She carried 366 First Class passengers, 280 in Second Class, 64 in Third Class and 60 in Fourth Class. She served with distinction as an Allied troopship during World War II, and carried large numbers of Dutch and European migrants to Australia from 1950 to 1963. She was sold to Greek Line in 1963 for a series of Canary Islands cruises from Southampton, but her Christmas 1963 cruise met with disaster when she caught fire while outward bound from Southampton on 22nd December. The passengers were poorly organised during the evacuation by her Greek crew into overcrowded lifeboats, with many people drowning or being injured, with others jumping to their deaths into the sea to escape the flames and smoke. Some 128 lives were lost during the fire ravages of her accommodation, and the burnt-out hulk was then towed by two tugs towards Gibraltar, but sank en-route a week later on 29th December 1963.

The liner Queen Anna Maria of Greek Line also had an important career before her purchase by Greek Line as the liner Empress of Britain, built in 1955 by the Fairfield yard at Govan for Canadian Pacific Steamships for service to the St. Lawrence. She measured 25,516 grt with an overall length of 640.0 feet, moulded beam of 85.2 feet, and a loaded draft of 29.0 feet. She was launched into the Clyde on 22nd June 1955 with great ceremony by H.M. Queen Elizabeth II, and was completed to carry 160 passengers in First Class and 894 passengers in Tourist Class. She was sold in November 1964 to Greek Line and renamed Queen Anna Maria and partnered Olympia for many years until 1975 and the demise of Greek Line. She was rebuilt with a new lido deck and area aft by Greek Line, with the swimming pool enclosed during winter crossings but open during sunny, summer weather. She was laid up at Piraeus in 1975 and then sold to Carnival Cruise Line of Miami for cruising as Carnivale. She was transferred to Fiesta Marina Cruises in 1993 and renamed Fiesta Marina, but was sold a year later to Epirotiki Cruises of Greece and renamed Olympic, passing in 1997 to Thomson Holidays as The Topaz. She later sailed as ‘The Peace Boat’ for Topaz International from 2003, but was laid up in April 2008 and broken up at Alang in India during the second half of 2008, after a long career of 53 years.

GOULANDRIS TANKERS AND BULKERS

At the end of World War II, working out of Athens and New York were the five grandsons of John P. Goulandris, (the sons of Peter J. Goulandris and Chryssa Dumbassi), with the United Shipping & Trading Company in Greece, and the Orion Shipping & Trading Inc. of New York. Fifty ‘Liberty’ ships built during the war in the U.S.A. and Canada were purchased for the dry cargo fleet. The first ‘T2’ tanker was purchased in 1982 and renamed Petros, and a large fleet of 32 tankers with mostly ‘Andros’ prefixes to their names had been built by 1960. Japanese yards were leading the way and built Andros Tempest, Andros Trader and Andros Triumph of 47,000 dwt during 1957/59. The Bethlehem Sparrows Point yard in Maryland was another good customer with five tankers including John P.G. and Master Peter, both of 29,500 dwt. The first VLCC was completed in 1969 as Andros Star of 217,000 dwt by the Mitsubishi yard, and by 1975 sixty tankers and bulkers had been built for the combined Goulandris Athens and New York fleets, including no fewer than one dozen VLCCs, with some named as Andros Aries, Andros Apollon, Andros Atlas, Andros Master, Andros Orion, Andros Patria, Andros Star, Andros Texas and Andros Titan.

Nikolaos Goulandris, brother of Basil J. Goulandris, had founded in 1953 his own company, N. J. Goulandris in London, and by 1975 he had amassed a big fleet of fifty tankers and bulkers, including the VLCCs Violando N. Goulandris, Michael L. Goulandris and Nicholas J. Goulandris. Basil J. Goulandris continued managing his fleet under Goulandris Brothers Ltd. in collaboration with his sons John Goulandris and Basil Constantine Goulandris (born February 1928) from an office in St. Mary Axe in London, with fourteen tankers and bulkers owned in 1975 with eight with ‘Grecian’ prefixes to their names, four with ‘Ocean prefixes to their names, and two with ‘Golden prefixes to their names.

Basil J. Goulandris died in 1976 in London, but had been active in politics in Andros and the Cyclades Group of islands since 1936. He carried out several charitable restoration and cultural projects on his home island of Andros, usually donating large sums of money for these island projects, and being decorated by the Greek State for these contributions and his charitable work. He served the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) in the many capacities of Member, Board director and President from 1926 to 1972.

The five sons of Peter J. Goulandris were Vassilis Goulandris (1913-1994), his twin brother Nicholas Goulandris (1913-1983), brothers John Goulandris (1907-1953), George Goulandris (1908-1974) and Constantine Goulandris (1916-1978). By the 1980s, only Vassilis Goulandris of the five brothers was still alive, and he ran the United Shipping & Trading Company out of Greece with his nephews Peter J. Goulandris, son of John P. Goulandris and Maria Lemou, as well as Peter George Goulandris and Peter N. Goulandris, both sons of Nicholas Goulandris.

At the Millennium, United Shipping & Trading Company of Greece was operating a fleet of eleven ships, with five dry bulkers and six tankers. The latter included a VLCC, the 229,044dwt Andros Georgios, three Aframax tankers of 145,000 dwt named Narova, Nikator and Nisyros, and two smaller product tankers of 37,400 dwt and 46,693dwt named Proteus and Prodicos. The dry bulkers ranged from 37,000 dwt to 68,000 dwt and were named Alpheos, Argolis, Istria, Militos, and Myrina. Today, the main shipping interests of the company are restricted to shipbroking.

THE EMBIRICOS FAMILY OF ANDROS SHIPOWNERS

The well-known Embiricos shipowners included Leonidas A. Embiricos (1869-1948) and Stamatios G. Embiricos (1868-1934), and were equally as important in Andros shipping as Basil J. Goulandris (1886-1976) was to the Goulandris family. Leonidas Embiricos was born on Andros in 1869 as the eldest son of Andreas Embiricos of Romania, and began in shipping in the office of his uncle Alcibiades C. Embiricos in Braila. He moved to Syros in 1899 and founded Embiricos Brothers along with his three brothers Antonios, Michael and Maris. The business began with two old tramps followed by newbuilding cargo ships in 1902.

Leonidas Embiricos and his three brothers founded the National Greek Line in 1909 to operate passenger services between Greek ports and New York. The twin funnelled Patris of 4,390 grt was completed in 1909 by the Northumberland Shipbuilding Company on the Tyne on dimensions of overall length 370.0 feet, moulded beam of 47.0 feet and moulded depth of 22.9 feet. She had accommodation for 140 passengers in three classes and gave long service until sold in 1925 to Messageries Maritimes and renamed Claude Chappe for a passenger feeder service between Saigon and Haiphong.

The National Greek Line service to New York was supplemented in 1915 by the formation of a British flag subsidiary in 1915 known as the Byron Line. The two companies had good passenger loadings during World War I, but when the U.S. Immigration Laws were introduced in 1921, it heavily cut passenger numbers. Sailings were forced to be extended to Constantinople, Beirut and Alexandria to find enough passengers for an economical service. However, the Great Depression lasting from 1930 to 1935 killed off the Mediterranean migrant service, and the last voyage of these twin Embiricos passenger lines was made in 1935. A total of ten liners were used by both companies, mostly purchased from Hellenic Transport Line, Hamburg Amerika Line, North German Lloyd, Anchor Line, Ellerman City Line and other European passenger lines.

The twin funnelled Vasilefs Constantinos of 9,272 grt when completed in 1914 was the only one of two liners ordered from the Birkenhead yard of Cammell, Laird & Co. Ltd. in 1913 that was delivered to the National Greek Line, her twin being purchased by the British Government for troopship duties. She had a length of 480.0 feet between perpendiculars, 58.0 feet in the beam, a moulded depth of 35.6 feet, and a loaded draft of 24.2 feet. She was powered by two sets of quadruple steam expansion engines with steam raised by eight boilers that were coal fired to give a service speed of eighteen knots. She was an emigrant ship with up to 1,800 squashed into the dormitories. She also had accommodation for sixty First Class passengers and a larger number of Second Class passengers.

The smaller but handsome Patris II passenger liner was completed in 1926 by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. of a modest 3,902 grt as an important new liner, as previously with only one exception in Vasilefs Constantinos, the Greek National Line had always employed second hand liners. Patris II was built for a feeder passenger service between Marseille and Genoa, Beirut, Alexandria, Piraeus and Cyprus. She was launched into the Tyne on 19th October 1925 and ran her trials three months later to give a maximum speed of over 16 knots and a service speed of 14 knots from oil fired boilers and twin triple expansion steam engines. She had accommodation for one hundred in First Class and 150 Second Class passengers, in addition to a large number of deck passengers during the summer season. Patris II was sold in 1935 to Swedish Lloyd and renamed Patricia, and then sold to the Swedish Navy in 1940 as a submarine depot ship and was still in commission as such in 1970. The other National Greek Line liners were Athinai, Constantinople, Edison, Ioannina, King Alexander, Macedonia, Moreas, Themistocles and Thessalonika.

Leonidas Embiricos managed Andros registered tramps after the dissolution of his passenger ship companies in 1935, losing them all to German U-boats and mines during World War II, and he died in Paris in 1948. His brothers Antonios, Maris and Michael were managing a total of eight tramps in 1932 named Eleni G. Embiricos, Evoikos, Laconicos, Maliacos, Oropos, Petalli, Saronikos and Sunion. Leonidas Embiricos was a political supporter of Eleftherios Venizelos, born in 1864 and Prime Minister of Greece seven times during the years from 1910 to 1933. Venizelos brought Greece onto the side of the Allied powers during World War I, but this foreign policy led to a national struggle with King Constantine of Greece, which affected the political and social life of Greece for decades.

Stamatios G. Embiricos was born in 1868 on Andros, but studied initially in Romania and then at the Commercial School at Halki and in London. He began commercial life in the office of his uncle Alcibiades C. Embiricos in Braila. He founded S. G. Embiricos Ltd. in 1896 in Merlin Street in Athens, with branch offices in Holland House, Bury Street in London, and at the Cardiff Coal Exchange, with two second hand tramps purchased in 1899 and a newbuilding in 1904. Two tramps were lost during World War I, Assimacos was sunk in the Bay of Biscay in November 1916, and Miltiades Embiricos, the former Adana of Furness, Withy & Co. Ltd., was sunk in the Mediterranean in July 1917. This fleet had grown to eight tramps in 1932 of up to 7,500 dwt named Epaminondas G. Embiricos, Eugenie S. Embiricos, George M. Embiricos, Ioannis M. Embiricos, Irene S. Embiricos, Michael L. Embiricos, Ellin, and Hellespont. He also founded a major coal importing company on Andros together with his brother Aristides. He also provided loans to new shipping entrepreneurs of Andros during the inter-war years until his death on 6th September 1934 in Hamburg.

George M. Embiricos was born on Andros in 1920, and studied for a Law degree at Cambridge University prior to the outbreak of World War II. He then joined the family Embiricos shipping empire in London in 1940, but by the end of that decade he was living in New York with his wife and two sons, Aristides and Peter. In post-war years, Stamatios N. Embiricos, together with George M. Embiricos, built up a large fleet of general cargo ships and bulkers. This fleet was the Stamatios G. Embiricos Shipping Company Ltd., with two general cargo ships built in 1956 as Stamatios G. Embiricos of 12,800 dwt by the Doxford yard at Sunderland, and George M. Embiricos of 12,560 dwt by the Forge et Chantiers de la Mediterranean yard in France. The Doxford built ship had a career of almost thirty years until she arrived at Chittagong on 27th October 1985 for breaking up under the name of Sword. The fleet had grown to eighteen general cargo ships and bulkers by 1973, including the dry bulkers Doryforos of 32,785 dwt built in 1971 by Mitsui, George S. Embiricos of 32,388 dwt built by Mitsui in 1970, Leonidas Z. Cambanis of 27,470 dwt built by Mitsui in 1965, Mina L. Cambanis of 28,131 grt built in 1969 by the Hakodate Dock Company, and Nicolaos S. Embiricos of 31,500 dwt built in 1972.

George M. Embiricos died in 2011 at his home in Lausanne in Switzerland, and had amassed a huge collection of paintings by Van Gogh, El Greco, Goya, Cezanne, Kandinsky, Picasso, Bacon and other painters during his lifetime worth many hundreds of millions of pounds.

THE POLEMIS FAMILY OF ANDROS SHIPOWNERS

Vassilios A. Polemis was the patriarch of the Polemis family from the second half of the 19th century, and served as a Master Mariner of sailing ships until in 1905 he moved into steam powered tramp shipping in collaboration with his son-in – law John Goumas, born on Andros in 1869. The Great Depression of six years from 1930 to 1935 saw John Goumas operating two old steam tramps in Vassilios A. Polemis of 3,429 grt and built in Antwerp in 1907 as Oehringen for Seetransport Gmbh of Hamburg, and Maroulio V. Polemi of 3,732 grt and built in 1906 as Castlemoor by the John Readhead yard at South Shields for Moor Line of Newcastle. Vassilios A. Polemis was torpedoed and sunk by U-333 on 22nd January 1942 after she had dispersed from convoy ON53 from the Clyde to St. John (New Brunswick) with the unfortunate loss of 21 crew members, the remaining 12 survivors were picked up by the Greek tramp Leonidas N. Condylis and taken to Halifax (NS), and then by ambulance to Halifax Infirmary suffering from frostbite and exposure.

The subsequent generation of the Polemis shipowning family in the early 1960s were the brothers Spyros L. Polemis, born in December 1937, and his brother Adamantios L. Polemis, as well as Dr. Spyros M. Polemis. They all worked in the Polemis family shipowning company during the 1960s of the Polembros Maritime Co. Ltd. in Sachtouri Street in Piraeus, and were managing a big fleet of fourteen second-hand tankers and dry bulkers in 1974. In that year, Polembros Shipping Ltd. was set up in London by Spyros L. Polemis and Adamantios L. Polemis as equal partners. Today, Polembros Shipping Ltd. operates a big fleet from Athens of two dozen large tankers and dry bulkers, one dozen of each, and all with ‘Warrior’ as a suffix to their names e.g. Green Warrior.

Dr. Spyros M. Polemis was also born on Andros island and educated in Athens, London, and the Stevns Institute of Technology in the U.S.A., graduating with qualifications in Naval Architecture and Mechanical Engineering. He worked in the family Polemis shipping business from 1961 to 1970 in Greece, and then left to set up his own shipping company of Remi Maritime Corporation, headquartered in Athens. This company traded successfully until the massive fall in freight rates in 2008, with most of a fleet of 22 ships having to be sold off as uneconomical. The last two Supramax dry bulkers were sold off a decade later at auction in 2018 and Remi Maritime Corporation was wound up. Dr. Spyros M. Polemis is well known as an author of books and texts on the history of Greek shipping, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Greek Shipping Hall of Fame. He has served as a board member or adviser on countless shipping organisations including the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS), International Maritime Organisation (IMO, Intercargo, Intertanko, and is Chairman of the Board of the Newcastle P&I Association and North of England P&I Association, and many other important shipping bodies.

POLEMIS CRUDE OIL SHUTTLE TANKERS

The Argyll crude oilfield was located in the North Sea some 310 kilometres east south east (ESE) of Aberdeen, and was the first oilfield to produce oil from the U.K. offshore Continental shelf. The field was initially developed by a consortium of Hamilton Brothers Oil Co. Ltd. (36%), Texaco North Sea (U.K.) Ltd. (24%), RTZ Oil and Gas (25%) Blackfriars Oil Co. Ltd. (12.5%) and Transworld Drilling (2.5%). The oil rig Transworld 58 was converted on the Tees for this field and was installed on site in February 1975, with crude oil production starting from eight wells in June 1975. Crude oil from Argyll was exported through the Catenary Anchor Leg Mooring Facility, located two kilometres from the Transworld 58 drilling rig in a water depth of 77 metres. The first crude oil from the Argyll field was loaded onto the Polembros shuttle tanker Theogennitor of 35,850 dwt and built in 1957, and offloaded at the BP oil refinery at the Isle of Grain in June 1975. The ten inch flow line could operate with shuttle tankers up to 100,000 dwt, and Polembros shuttle tankers continued to operate until Argyll field production ceased in November 1992 after it had produced 73 million barrels of crude oil during its lifetime.

Theogennitor was laid up at Piraeus on 29th July 1976 and replaced on the Argyll field shuttle run to Shell Haven by the Polembros shuttle tanker Spiros of 61,017 dwt and built in 1965 by the Kure Zosensho yard as Carib Trader. The shuttle tanker Venture of 96,981 dwt, built in 1966, completed the Argyll shuttle service and was sold for breaking up in 1992. The Polembros shuttle tanker Thistle Venture operated from the Thistle field on a shuttle run of over 100 miles into Sullom Voe oil terminal until she was sold in 1983. She had been built as Gratian for Hilmar Reksten of Norway in 1967, and then became Jarita of Anders Jahre of Norway before purchase by Polembros Shipping Ltd.

Production from Argyll had varied from around four million barrels per year in 1975 to a peak of around nine million barrels per year in 1992. This important oilfield was brought back into operation between 2010 and 2015 by Enquest Oil as the Gallia oilfield using the FPSO Enquest Producer (the former Uisge Gorm) and converted on the Tyne. She is currently laid up at Invergordon, and has a production capacity of 60,000 barrels per day with a storage capacity of 625,000 barrels. Polembros shuttle tankers have also operated in the Brazilian oilfields on charter to Petrobras of Brazil, growing in size to a high point of eight shuttle tankers.

In contrast, the Norwegian sector of the North Sea Continental oilfields first found crude oil in the Ekofisk field in October 1969 with a flow of 10,000 barrels per day, which was then transported by shuttle tankers until a one metre diameter pipeline of length 220 miles had been laid to the Phillips 66 refinery on the Tees from 1975. Shuttle tankers such as Elisabeth Fernstrom of 75,400 dwt and owned by Fernstrom of Sweden were used at first, from the huge Ekofisk storage tank of 100 million barrels of crude oil. Ekofisk crude oil production was massively boosted by the West Ekofisk, Eldfisk, Edda, Albuskjell, Tor and Cod oilfields by 1972, all within a radius of twenty miles away except for the Cod field which is fifty miles distant.

POLEMBROS DRY BULK AND TANKER FLEET

The first Polembros Shipping fleet Ltd. in 1974 was composed of fourteen second hand vessels, with seven tankers and seven dry bulkers. These were as follows:-

Tankers                                                   Dry Bulkers

• Theodoros 41,108dwt                               Aspilos 15,355dwt
• Theogennitor 36,006dwt                        Cindy 32,762dwt
• Theonymphos 49,863dwt                       Kynthia 19,545dwt
• Theotokos 42,816dwt                               Theodohos 15,824dwt
• Assimina 18,510dwt                                  Theokeetor 17,482dwt
• Mike 43,370dwt                                         Theomana 28,630dwt
• Spiros 61,017dwt                                       Theomitor III 28,630dwt

Unfortunately, Theokeetor was lost by collision in fog with the Greek bulker Marina L in the Pacific Ocean on 20th June 1973 while on a voyage from Tocopilla in Chile to Shanghai with nitrates, all 37 crew were rescued. A massive drop in oil transport rates followed the OPEC oil price hike in October 1973, with wholesale scrapping and sale of many older and new tankers as they were completely uneconomical to operate as world oil consumption had dropped by over one half. The Polembros Shipping tanker fleet was one of the fleets to suffer drastic rationalisation, with only a number of dry bulk carriers operating in the late 1970s. Assimina (2), named after one of the Polembros wives and daughters, of 70,276 dwt was trading from Dampier to Bremerhaven with iron ore in October 1978, arriving in Germany on 11th October. Cindy of 32,762 dwt and built in 1970 by Mitsui Zosen yard was on a dry bulk voyage from Sungei Rejang in Sarawak to Liverpool with grain, and Kynthia of 19,545 dwt and built in 1971 by the Onomichi Zosen yard was on a dry bulk voyage from Kakinada to Calcutta at the same time in October 1978.

A new second hand fleet was then gradually purchased by Polembros Shipping Ltd., beginning in 1980 and continuing until 1988, when a fleet of twenty ships was being traded, with fifteen tankers and five bulk carriers. This fleet included two classic engines aft, bridge ‘midships tankers, Jussara and Vitoria of 16,500 dwt, that had been built over twenty years before.

Odyssey had been built in 1971 as Oriental Phoenix, but sank on 10th November 1988 off the coast of Canada following an explosion onboard during rough weather, causing the ship to break in two after catching fire with the loss of all of her 27 crew members, 17 Greek and a dozen Hondurans. She had departed five days earlier from Sullom Voe fully loaded with 132,157 tonnes of crude oil from the Brent field for the Come by Chance refinery in Newfoundland. The crude oil caught fire in the stern section but quickly engulfed the remainder of the vessel and ignited oil in the sea completely surrounding her, making it impossible to rescue anyone as rescue ships could not approach the inferno.

The tanker Alina P exploded with some force on 30th December 1992 at San Sebastiao near Sao Paulo. She was partially submerged at the Transpetro Terminal, a subsidiary of Petrobras of Brazil. The tankers Ubarana and Leonidas were sold for breaking up during the same year. The bulker Tigris of 122,647 dwt, and the VLCC tanker Good News of 240,250 dwt were the biggest vessels in the Polembros Shipping Ltd. of London fleet in the 1980s, but several more bulkers and tankers of this size followed during the 1990s.

These included Theogennitor of 116,978 dwt, Theotokos of 103,320 dwt, Agia Thalassini of 103,100 dwt, Linardos of 103,333 dwt, Leon of 145,100 dwt, Alina of 129,390 dwt, Brazil Vitoria of 139,775 dwt, and two VLCCs in Assimina of 254,735 dwt and Leonidas of 276,245 dwt, as well as the Capesize dry bulker New Harvest of 208,750 dwt. The London headquarters of Polembros Shipping Ltd. was at 110, Park Street near Hyde Park in a building reconstructed in 1990/91 with an original Victorian façade but with offices on six floors. Subsequently, Polembros Shipping moved back to an Athens headquarters in Poseidonos Avenue in Piraeus.

The tanker Tasman Spirit loaded a cargo of 67,532 tonnes of light crude oil at Kharg Island in July 2003. She ran aground on 27th July 2003 in the approaches to Port of Karachi, spilling 27,000 tonnes of oil over the next few days that polluted ten miles of the main public beach of the city. The tanker later split into two parts and was lost, however the remainder of her cargo had been offloaded into smaller tankers. The Master and seven crew members were detained for a short while by the Pakistani authorities.

The tanker Everton of 86,000 dwt had been built in 1980 as Nachi Maru by the Namura Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., and was in collision in April 2004 with the vessel Chung Ying, with severe damage to number one port side tank. She was later repaired in dry-dock at Dubai and began trading for Polembros Shipping Ltd. again as freight rates were high at this time.

The tanker Theotokos was leaking fuel oil into the forepeak ballast tank from a cargo tank, violating U.S. anti-pollution and safety laws when she entered U.S. waters in 2009. The company was fined $2.7 million and the U.S. Court in Louisiana ordered all company ships to be barred from entering U.S. waters for a period of three years.

A NEW FLEET FOR A NEW MILLENNIUM

China became a ‘superpower’ in commercial terms with a huge export of consumer products to Western Europe and North America during the 1980s and 1990s. This rise required large amounts of coal and iron ore imports to fuel its power stations, blast furnaces and industry, as well as increased imports of crude oil and oil products from Persian Gulf, Indonesia and Offshore Western Australia. Polembros Shipping Ltd. wished to continue trading with dry bulk and oil cargoes in the Western Hemisphere, but also to forge deeper relationships with traders in the Eastern Hemisphere.

It was decided to adopt a new standard nomenclature for the fleet, based on the ‘Terracotta Warriors’ found in their burial grave in Lintong County in Central China. The Chinese warriors date from the late third century BC, and were discovered on 29th March 1974 by local farmers.

The soldier and horse figurines were ordered to be made by Emperor Qin, then aged 13 years, when he ascended to the throne, by a huge workforce of 700,000 conscripted workers. The necropolis is part of a much larger area of 38 square miles, with the warriors, each with a distinctive and different face, standing guard to the tomb of the First Emperor Qin. The warriors are all of 6.5 to 7.0 feet in height.

A new fleet of forty ships consisting of dry bulkers in the ‘Handysize’, ‘Panamax’, ‘Kamsarmax’, ‘Post Panarmax’, ‘Capesize’ and ‘Newcastlemax’ sizes, and tankers in the ‘Aframax’ and ‘Suezmax’ sizes, was purchased or ordered as newbuildings.

Adamantios L. Polemis and Spyros L. Polemis ceased to be partners in 2014 in Polembros Shipping Ltd., after 40 years of amicable trading, and split their shipping interests after the younger generation of both partners were playing a much larger role in managing the fleet. This process had been underway from the start of 2014 and was completed in June 2014. The sons of both of the brothers are called Leonidas, named after one of the two kings of Sparta in 490 BC, as well as Alina Polemis, daughter of Adamantios Polemis, and all three were in future to work for New Shipping, a company established in 2005 in the Polemis Group. The bulker Katerina Warrior was renamed New Katerina in the first half of 2014.

A twenty year old VLCC tanker, Diamond Warrior (2) of 270,000 dwt was purchased by Polembros Shipping Ltd. in 2019 and then renamed New Diamond. On 3rd September 2020 while fully loaded and under charter to the Indian Oil Corporation for discharge at the port of Paradip she suffered a boiler explosion in her engine room which engulfed and severely burnt and damaged her aft accommodation. The fire occurred off the coast of Sangamankanda in the Ampara district of Sri Lanka, with her crew evacuated by helicopter to safety. The Government of Sri Lanka incurred considerable costs in putting out the fire, with Polembros Shipping Ltd. releasing $1.8 million to cover these costs. The VLCC was then towed to Khor Fakkan in Oman to discharge her cargo, and was then towed to Alang in India for breaking up.

On 31st May 2022, two Greek Suezmax tankers, Prudent Warrior of Polembros Shipping Ltd. and Delta Poseidon, were seized in the Persian Gulf by armed militia of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in apparent retaliation for the seizure by Greece of an Iranian oil cargo onboard the Iranian oil tanker Lana. The crews were not harmed, and the tankers were released after a few days.

POLFORCE SHIPPING COMPANY

Capt. Eleftherios Polemis of another branch of the Polemis family of Andros, acquired in 2011 the Supramax bulker Aliki Force of 58,577 dwt from Turkish owners for $16 million, and followed this purchase in 2018 with another Supramax bulker of 58,468 dwt renamed Captain Lefteris. The owner previously had a long career in shipping and ship crew management before the purchase of these two Supramax bulkers. The bulker Captain Lefteris arrived in the Tyne on Boxing Day 2022 fully loaded with biomass, and after discharge she sailed in ballast late on New Year’s Eve for Valletta, arriving there on 10th January 2023. The funnel colours of this pair of Supramax bulkers are yellow with a black top and a broad central blue band carrying a large white ‘P’ for Polemis.

Polforce Shipping Ltd. operates in the pool consortium of Handy Bulk LLC of Panama City for dry bulkers in the range of 10,000 dwt to 65,000 dwt, together with a dozen other dry bulk companies. These companies are well-known, with Diana Shipping Inc. of Greece, Oldendorff Carriers of Lubeck, Pacific Basin Shipping of Hong Kong, Eurodry of Greece, Castor Maritime of Limassol, Brave Maritime of Athens, Koch Shipping (Pte) Ltd. of Singapore, Atlantic Bulk Carriers Management of Athens, Ship Chartering Bulk Shipping of Zhejiang (China), Densay Shipping of Turkey, Tufton Oceanic of London and Doun Kisen of Japan.

Capt. Eleftherios Polemis passed away on 17th November 2021, but is remembered on Andros as a very generous benefactor to the island. The Most Reverend Andros Minister said after the news of his death was broken,”We express our deep human grief for the death of our dearest and very kind benefactor Eleftherios Polemis, who greatly helped the island with his philanthropic and cultural work”.

SUMMARY

VLCC tanker freight rates are set to greatly soar for the years of 2023 and 2024, achieving $23,000 per day by the third quarter of 2023, and $42,000 to even as high as $50,000 or $60,000 per day for the remainder of 2023 and 2024. Aframax and Suezmax tanker rates will also show good improvement due to low newbuilding orderbooks and great demand with no spare tanker capacity available.

Greek shipowners have always in the past been notorious in their determination to remain anonymous, setting up many layers and veils of secrecy to obfuscate and hide their identities for tax reasons. All Greek ships are registered under a different and unique single ship company for each ship, in order to create more complexity and thus avoid being investigated. Fortunately, this high level of anonymity has gradually been relaxed in recent years, and with the help of the Greek Shipping Hall of Fame it has been possible to research these three major and important Andriot shipping families, Goulandris, Embiricos and Polemis, of beautiful Andros Island.

I have seen hundreds of Greek ships during my lifetime, each with a Greek Master and a mostly Greek crew, and it is now usually possible not only to identify their Greek ownership but research the long histories of up to two hundred years of their shipowning families.