Piraeus is easily the third largest port in the Mediterranean as well as the gateway to the beautiful Aegean islands. Ferries leave constantly for the Saronic Islands of Aegina, Poros, Spetse and Hydra, as well as to Crete, Tinos, Andros, Santorini, Naxos, Syros, Lesvos, Chios, Mykonos, Paros and the other Dodecanese and Cyclades islands. Piraeus has been the port of Athens since classical times, protected by Long Walls connected to the capital, parts of which can still be seen today. The port provides an easy to understand system of gates for travellers to all island destinations by the ferries that operate the long and short routes to the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands. Fast onward travel from Piraeus is provided to Athens by a rail connection on Metro line 1. Piraeus port is located at latitude 37°56′ North, 23°38′ East, and consists of Megas Limin (Grand Harbour) leading out to the Limin Leondos (Outer Harbour) and the two breakwaters.

History of Piraeus

Piraeus is a headland five miles from Athens with a flat built up area of factories, warehouses and suburban houses. It has three harbours, which in ancient times, possessed nearly four hundred ship sheds with sloping ramps situated on the edge of the water. Piraeus is one of the great ports of the Eastern Mediterranean and the main industrial centre of Greece with a complex of breweries, soap factories, cloth makers and metal foundries. The anchorage outside the port is one and a half miles away and was known as Phalerum in ancient times.

Modern Piraeus dates only from the redevelopment of 1834 as it was abandoned for centuries after a glorious ancient birth. Piraeus was a rocky island connected to the mainland by a low lying stretch of land that was flooded with sea water for most of the year until around 2000 BC. Silting then took place forming one larger port, later called Faliro Piraeus, and two smaller ports, Zea and Munichia. In 493 BC, Themistocles began the fortifications of Faliro Piraeus and advised the Athenians of the potential of this natural harbour. Ten years later, the Athenian fleet was based in Faliro Piraeus and distinguished itself at the Battle of Salamis between the Greek city states and the Persians in 480 BC. Themistocles completed the fortifications with Pericles building the Long Walls connecting to Athens and the ship sheds, turning Faliro Piraeus into a great military and commercial port holding four hundred triremes, and a permanent base for the Athenian Navy.

However, the decline of Piraeus as a port began in 250 BC and continued throughout defeats in the Peloponnesian War, the roman invasion, and the invasion of the Goths in 395 BC. The decline was to last for thirteen centuries, including the Byzantine period from 322 AD to 1387 AD. The port was only occasionally used by the Ottoman Empire during their occupation of Greece, and was reduced to only one substantial building, a monastery, and was a very small fishing village, known as Porto Leone. The Ottoman Empire occupation of Greece lasted from the 15th century until the defeat of the Turkish Navy at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, and five years later Greece became fully independent.

Today, from the main harbour, it is twenty minutes walk to the attractive Pashalimani (the Pasha’s harbour), a crescent shaped harbour full of big yachts with an outer area known as Zea Marina. This was once the battle station of the Athenian triremes with the harbour protected by buttressed walls. Nearby is Piraeus Maritime Museum with the conning tower of a World War II Greek submarine on display outside. A winding corniche leads one to the third and smallest harbour known as Turcolimano (the Turk’s harbour), now called Mikrolimano. It faces the sweep of the bay and has a big selection of fish restaurants.

In 1835, The Municipality of Piraeus was established and Hydriot Kyriakos Serfiotis became its first Mayor. In 1854 during the Crimean War, Britain and France occupied Piraeus, intervening on behalf of the Ottoman Empire over concern about the growing strength of Russia. The first railway in Greece was constructed in 1869, linking Piraeus and Athens by nine kilometres of track. At the beginning of World War I, Piraeus and Athens shipowners accounted for 62% of the Greek fleet owning 259 steamers of 515,455 grt and included the ships of the Embiricos, Lykiardopulos, Vaglian, Vergottis and Michalinos families. Piraeus had only one quay with several piers jutting into the harbour at this time. Ships were moored Mediterranean style stern first to the quay, with the cargo discharged directly onto the quayside for onward transport by carts pulled by horses and donkeys to the local factories.

The Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) saw the expulsion of the Greek population of Asia Minor in Western Turkey from Smyrna (Izmir). The survivors of the war were shipped from Smyrna to Piraeus starting from 15th October 1922 under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne. This influx of refugees and islanders from Chios, Hydra and Syros then set up more factories in Piraeus. During the next two decades of the 20th century, the port and city continued its steady growth in all sectors, with a large Greek fleet owned in Piraeus by 1939 representing 11% of the world fleet. The establishment of the Port Committee in 1911 and the Port of Piraeus authority (PPA) in 1930 played a vital role in its development into a major port.

The Hellenic Coast Lines Co. Ltd. of Piraeus had a big fleet of coastal passenger and cargo ships during the inter-war years. Forty coastal ships were controlled from their headquarters in the Electric railway Station Building, running to the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands as well as Crete and Cyprus. Easily the largest of this interesting fleet was the clipper bowed twin masted former yacht Ira M of 2,440 grt built in 1893 by Laird Brothers for the American millionaire W. K. Vanderbilt as valiant. She was a fast twin screw steamer with a service speed of 17 knots, and was later owned by Lord Pirrie of Harland & Wolff Ltd. and came out to Greek waters in the 1920s. She served as the hospital ship Hellas during World War II and was sunk by German aircraft in Piraeus harbour with the loss of many wounded men on board. The smart coastal passenger ship Attiki of 2,260 grt had been built in January 1896 as Grenada by Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd. at Glasgow for George Christall of New York for Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean services and was later purchased for the Hellenic Coast Lines fleet. She had dimensions of length 281.5 feet, beam of 39 feet, depth of 25.5 feet with a long Bridge Deck of 152 feet.

Italian troops attacked Greece in 1940 and were rescued from defeat by the German army. German Wehrmacht troops captured Athens and the port of Piraeus on 27th April 1941, having invaded Yugoslavia on 6th April and then began the Battle of Greece on 9th April 1941, capturing seven thousand British Empire troops that had been sent to reinforce the Greek army. The Greek population was terrorised by German troops for most of the next four years. British and Greek troops landed at Patras on the Gulf of Corinth on 4th October 1944 and had retaken some of the country by the end of that year. However, the British army had not only to clear the port of any remaining German opposition in May 1945 but also of inter fighting between rival Greek political factions for a month after the ceasefire. In 1947, a protracted civil war broke out between the Greek monarchists and communist guerrilla forces. The guerrillas were not defeated until 1949, the Dodecanese islands having also finally returned to Greek sovereignty at the end of that year.

The Modern Port

The serious war damage of the port was repaired from 1950 onwards with financial aid from the United States. New port offices and buildings sprang up surrounding most of the port, and the population of Piraeus began to increase again and today has reached 175,700 people. The Port of Piraeus authority (PPA) employs 1,500 people and has over 24,000 ships arriving every year. The PPA headquarters is at Akti Miaouli 10 and the authority is 75% owned by the Greek State and 25% by private investors. The PPA is a go-ahead organisation, opening the state of the art Cruise Terminal B in June 2013 near the southern breakwater of the port and the Naval Cadets College. The PPA owns two water barges, Argo 1 and Argo 2, for ship replenishment, and two tugs, OLP 10 and OLP 11, both built locally in 1976 by the Naus shipyard.

I was a regular visitor on holiday to Piraeus in the 1980s and early 1990s, staying nearby or on the beautiful Argo Saronic islands of Aegina, Poros, Hydra and Spetsai, or the Cyclades islands of Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Naxos and Paros. at this time, the northern half of Piraeus harbour had general cargo berths and a twin gantry container berth, with the ships of Zim Lines, Norasia Lines, Empros Lines, Prodromos Lines, PPI Lines, Societe de Gestion Evge (SDGE) of Piraeus, Heracles general Cement as well as the reefers of Dole reefers, Caesar reefers and Del Monte reefers all very visible.

Empros Lines was established by Capt. George P. Dracopoulos (1830-1898) when he built the barque Philadelphos of 280 tonnes in the mid 19th century in a joint venture with a grain merchant. The first vessel to carry the name Empros was a steamer of 2,418 grt acquired by his son Markos G. Dracopoulos (1867-1918) in 1914. George M. Dracopoulos (1915-2008) began a regular cargo-liner service from Piraeus to London and North European ports in 1950. The steamer Avance was used, the name means ‘Forward’ and translates into Greek as Empros, with the next Avance being purchased from Albright & Wilson Ltd. in their phosphorus carrier Arthur Albright of 10,275 dwt built in 1960 by the Burntisland yard.

Empros Lines was running a dozen cargo ships on their liner service in 1973, they later owned SD14s e.g. Anna Dracopoulos and Empros, and general cargo ships e.g. Astronaftis, Aspidoforos and Agonistis in the 1980s. Currently, they operate five chartered general cargo ships ranging from 3,300 dwt to 9,700 dwt on the liner service from Piraeus to Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Bremen. In addition, they manage two large bulkers of 53,125 dwt, Alitis and Anassa Ioanna, completed by the Imabari Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. yard at Marugame in 2002, and three large bulkers of 63,000 dwt in George Dracopoulos delivered in 2013 with her two sisters delivered soon afterwards. They all have five holds and five hatches with four deck cranes of thirty tonnes capacity for cargo handling and are equipped with four grabs. George M. Dracopoulos founded the Aegean Maritime Museum on his native island of Mykonos in 1985, and it has been open to the public ever since. The historic cableship Thalis O. Milissios, completed in 1909, was laid up at Glyfada near Piraeus as a museum ship in 1991 and is part of the Aegean Maritime Museum.

in 1985, Societe de Gestion Evge (SDGE) managed a big fleet of 25 general cargo ships, bulkers, ro-ros and container ships plus the two Homes Lines cruise ships Atlantic and oceanic. General cargo ships included Karos, Karpathos and Kinaros, the former North German Lloyd Holstenstein, Schwabenstein and Friesenstein of 16,050 dwt built in Germany in 1967. Two container ships, Anemos and Pelagos of 550 TEU capacity, were also built in Germany in 1976. Prodromos Lines were managing a fleet of ten cargo ships and reefers in 1985 e.g. Ermioni and Zanet of 6,666 dwt, the former North American traders Missouri and Michigan of DFDS, the reefer Lydia formerly Kirsten Skou of Skou Line of Denmark, and the 11,400 dwt Tony which was built in 1962 at Bremerhaven as Eckenheim. PPI Lines managed small reefers such as Polly Premier of 4,200 dwt, with one member of their fleet, Polly Pride badly damaged by fire in January 1987 and had her class certificate suspended.

Piraeus Ferry Terminals

Tourist travel to the Greek islands began to increase in the early 1960s, and by 1969 some one million tourists were visiting per year. Today, this trade is worth in excess of $12,700 million with over fifteen million tourists arriving in Greece every year. Many small and unsuitable general cargo ships were converted into ferries, some capsizing or running aground with disastrous loss of life. As the Greek tourist trade is highly seasonal, with millions of tourists in summer and hardly any in winter, there was no incentive to build big, new purpose built ferries until the 1990s.

All of this was to change with the arrival of Attica Enterprises S.A. set up in 1992 by Pericles S. Panagopoulos as a holding company for Blue Star Ferries and Superfast Ferries. The former company was intended for local Greek domestic ferry routes, whereas the latter company was intended for international ferry routes. Seven modern Blue Star ferries with either ‘Blue’ or ‘Blue Star’ as a prefix to their name have been purpose built or purchased with accommodation for 1,600 berthed or unberthed passengers. Blue Star Ithaki was sold in 2015 to the Canadian government for their service between Digby (NS) and St. John (NB). A dozen modern ‘Superfast’ ferries have been built for the international market and the Adriatic services from Patras and Igoumenitsa to Bari and Ancona. They have accommodation for 1,400 passengers and 250 cars, and as their name suggests they have very high service speeds of 26 knots. Attica Enterprises S.A. also owns 48.6% of Strintzis Lines ferries.

Three more big ferry lines operate daily from Piraeus in the red funnelled Hellenic Seaways, Anek Lines and Minoan Lines, the latter pair principally to Crete. Hellenic Seaways operate a big fleet of over forty conventional ferries, fast craft and hydrofoils from Piraeus, and is the fleet most commonly seen in the harbour. Their newest ferry is Nissos Chios of 16,000 grt built by Eleusis Shipyards S.A. in 2007 with accommodation for 1,954 unberthed passengers and 146 berthed passengers. She has a lane length of 1,575 metres on her car decks, sufficient for 420 cars and one hundred lorries. She has a high service speed of 27 knots powered by four 12-cylinder Wartsila diesels of 43,075 bhp. Hellenic Seaways has the fast craft Highspeed 4, Highspeed 5 and Highspeed 6 craft operating in the Aegean with service speeds of 41 knots, and accommodation for between 800 and 1,045 passengers and space on the car deck for around two hundred cars. Highspeed 6 was purchased from Acciona Trasmediterranea in 2010 as Milenium, and Highspeed 4 and Highspeed 5 were completed in July 2000 and July 2005 by the Austal Ships (Pty) Ltd. yard at Fremantle. There are several bigger, conventional ferries in Nissos Mykonos, Nissos Rodos, Ariadne, Express Pegasus, Express Skiathos, Poseidon Hellas, Artemis and Apollon Hellas.

Crete is served by Anek Lines with eleven big new ferries, the largest of which is El Venizelos of 38,261 grt built in 1992 by Stocznia Gdynia S.A. with accommodation for 1,600 berthed and 1,400 unberthed passengers and a lane length of 1,700 metres. She has a service speed of twenty knots powered by four 16-cylinder Sulzer diesels of 46,400 bhp. Minoan Lines also serve Crete with Europa Palace, Festos Palace, Ikaros Palace and Olympia Palace with accommodation for up to 1,900 unberthed and 750 berthed passengers. They typically have a lane length of two thousand metres on their car decks for a large number of cars and trailers, and high service speeds of thirty knots from four 16-cylinder Wartsila diesels of 91,365 bhp.

During my regular visits to Piraeus on holiday in the 1980s and early 1990s, the following family owned Greek ferry lines with their many colourful funnels were visible in Piraeus harbour:-

Agapitos Express Line

Aigaion, Express Olympia, Naias II

Agoudimos Lines

Penelope A (ex Horsa), Kapetan Alexandros

ANEK Lines

Aptera, Candia, El Venizelos, Kriti, Kydon, Latos, Lissos, Rethimnon

DANE Sea Line

Ialyssos, Kamiros, Lindos, Patmos, Rodos

Epirotiki Lines

Hermes (Saronic Islands day cruiser)

A. Ferries

Daliana, Dimitra, Marina, Milena, Rodanthi, Romilda

Hellenic Med Lines

Egnatia

Kyriakos Lines

City of Athens, City of Hydra (ex Claymore), City of Andros, City of Poros, City of Mykonos

Lindos Lines

Milos Express (ex Vortigern)

Minoan Lines

Agia Galini, Ariadne, Daedalus, El Greco, Erotokritis, Fedra, Festos, King Minos, Knossos, N. Kazantzakis

NEL Lines

Alcaeos, Agios Rafael, Myilene, Sappho

Poseidon Lines

Alexandros, Lasithi

Rethymno Lines

Arkadi

Saronic Islands

Aegean Glory, Eftychia, Georgios, Saronicos, Poros Moon

Strintzis Lines

Ionian Sea, Ionian Galaxy, Ionian Island

Ventouris Sea Lines

Agios Nektarios, Apollon Express 1 (ex Senlac), Apollon Express 2 (ex Hengist), Ergina, Georgios Express, Methodia, Sifnos Express

Panagia Tinou, also owned by Ventouris Sea Lines, was my favourite ferry, sailing to the islands of Andros and Tinos. She was the streamlined former Koningin Wilhelmina built in Holland in 1960 for the Zeeland Steamship Company with accommodation for 1,600 passengers. a car deck was added in 1979 when she was sold for service out of Piraeus and alterations were also made to her flared bow. Her new name of Panagia Tinou was very appropriate as most of her local passengers were travelling on pilgrimages to the Panagia Evangelistria Church on Tinos, many crawling on their knees from the ferry to the church. I also sailed on the red hulled Paros to the island of the same name, but she was badly damaged by fire in July 1992 and later sold to Ventouris Sea Lines and renamed Panagia Paxon.

City of Poros was boarded by three Palestinian terrorists just before she sailed from Aegina for Piraeus on her last 2030 hours sailing of the day on 11th July 1988. Three miles from the pretty harbour they opened fire on their fellow travellers with concealed weapons and hand grenades. Nine people were killed and 98 were wounded and the terrorists made good their escape on a speedboat which pulled alongside with their accomplices to the atrocity. The three terrorists that had carried out the outrage were later arrested and convicted, but those that had planned the operation escaped justice. Security was increased at Piraeus subsequently, with a system of physical security checks installed. Piraeus port has a throughput of twenty million passengers per annum, of which eight million passengers form the traffic from Perama to Salamis Island. The remaining twelve million passengers leave from the main port, whose boundaries are from the Themistocles breakwater to the Krakari breakwater. There are five ticket offices and three ferry passenger terminals:-

Akti Tzelepi Passenger Terminal

a large stone building with air conditioned hall, ticket office, refreshment room, internet access, tourist information service and toilets for both able bodied and disabled passengers.

Akti Vasileadi Passenger Terminal

a modern building with a white sloping roof and air conditioned hall, ticket office, and toilets for both able bodied and disabled passengers.

Agios Dionysius Passenger Terminal

Two quayside buildings painted light blue with air conditioned halls, ticket office, refreshment room and toilets for both able bodied and disabled passengers.

A system of a dozen gates numbered E1 to E12 give access to the ferry and cruise terminals, and the gates are spread right around the port from the Themistocles breakwater to the Krakari breakwater. The gates are for the following routes:-

E1 – Dodecanese islands

E2 – Crete, Chios, Mytilene (pedestrian entrance)

E3 – Crete (vehicles)

E4 – Kithira island

E5 – PPA Bus Terminal (Free buses)

E6 – Syros, Mykonos, Paros, Naxos, Ios, Santorini, Ikaria, Samos

E7 – Cyclades Islands as E6

E8 – Argo Saronic Islands of Aegina, Poros, Hydra And Spetse

E9 – Cyclades, Samos, Ikaria

E10 – Cyclades, Samos, Ikaria (vehicles)

E11 – Cruise Terminal A

E12 – Cruise Terminal B

The ferries normally dock at the gates and destinations shown above, but in summer when the port is very busy they dock where space permits. voyage times to the islands vary quite a bit from one hour to Andros and Tinos, fourteen hours to Rhodes, and sixteen hours to Crete. overnight cabins are available for these long routes as well as to Kithira island, south of the Peloponnese mainland.

Piraeus Cruise Terminals

The Mediterranean is the second largest cruising area in the world after the Caribbean, and Piraeus is host to almost five hundred cruise ships per annum, and ranks along with Barcelona and Genoa as a major Mediterranean cruise destination. The port has eleven berths for cruise ships up to the largest operating in the world, with some of the berths just inside the southern breakwater of the port. Passengers are transferred by PPA coaches to and from one of the two cruise terminals if their ship is not berthed directly outside one of these terminals:-

International Cruise Terminal A

Located on the southern side of the central harbour on Akti Miaoulis, the spacious terminal has air conditioned lounges, luggage lockers, customs areas, duty free shops and refreshment restaurants and cafés. There is plenty of open parking area for tourist coaches and a helipad on the roof.

International Cruise Terminal B

The newly extended cruise terminal B, renamed Themistocles Terminal recently, was opened in May 2013. it is located near the southern breakwater of the port and has been extended to 5,400 square feet in area and has two separate halls, one for arrivals and one for departures. The glass fronted extension provides more space for passengers and the carousels for baggage handling. The headquarters of the association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports known as MedCruise remains at the main PPA offices for the years from 2014 to 2017. MedCruise has seventy cruise port members representing 101 cruise ports in the Mediterranean and Black sea area.

2015 Piraeus Cruise Ship Calls

This large number of cruise ships calling every year is in contrast to the smaller numbers I saw at the only Piraeus cruise terminal during my visits in the 1980s and early 1990s. These included Achille Lauro, Aegean Dolphin, Aegean Paradise, Aleksandr Pushkin, Arcadia, Argonaut, Betsy Ross (ex Leda), Costa Marina, Cunard Princess, Cunard Countess, Illiria, Jason, Jupiter, Mistral Ii, Neptune, Oceanis, Odysseus, Olympic, Orpheus, Pegasus, Radisson Diamond, Sagafjord, Sea Cloud, Shota Rustaveli, Stella Oceanis, Stella Maris II, Stella Solaris, Triton, Vistafjord, and World Renaissance. The main terminal berth was always occupied in summer, with other cruise ships moored ‘Mediterranean style’ stern first at nearby quays.

The Epirotiki cruise ship Jupiter of 6,306 grt with 391 British schoolchildren and 84 teachers on board collided with the Italian vehicle carrier Adige fifteen minutes after she sailed on an educational cruise to Rhodes through the Piraeus breakwaters on 21st October 1988. She sank forty minutes later in the anchorage 1.5 miles from the port with the loss of one child, one teacher and two crew members. She had a passenger certificate for 475 passengers and was the former Zim Line passenger ship Moledet, completed in 1961 by ateliers et Chantiers de Bretagne at Nantes. Jupiter was badly holed on the port side, and sank vertically stern first. The Master and officers of the Italian ship were later held to blame at the subsequent enquiry.

PPA Cargo Terminals

The PPA Container Terminal is located at Keratsini to the west of the main port, and offers tide free deep water facilities at two main piers. a total berth length of 2,774 metres and a maximum alongside depth of water of 18 metres is provided. in 2009, COSCO of China acquired a concession from the Greek government to operate half of the container terminal for a period of 35 years in a deal worth $400 million. Business activity through the COSCO managed part of the terminal has since tripled from its starting date of 1st October 2009. on 27th November 2014, a new revised agreement saw an additional investment by COSCO of 230 million Euros for the creation of a new West Pier III, increasing capacity at the Port of Piraeus to 7.2 MTEU per annum. West Pier III will have a high density stacking system and additional capacity of 3.5 million TEU. The terminal covers a total of 90 hectares and includes over 62 hectares of open storage area and 19,200 square feet of a container rail freight station. The current annual throughput is 3.7 million TEU of containers, excluding Pier III, with the Piraeus container terminal now the fastest growing terminal in the Mediterranean.

Previously, containers were handled in this same Ikonion base area to the west of the main port, as well as at a twin gantry container berth in the main port. Today, there are seven twin lift container cranes of 65 tonnes capacity, four capable of handling Post Panamax container ships and three of Panamax container ships. There are eight rail mounted gantry cranes, ten straddle carriers, one mobile crane of 100 tonnes capacity, and much other smaller handling equipment. There is a link into the Hellenic Railways rail network and three shift operation is worked at the terminal. All of the big container lines call including Maersk Line, CMA-CGM, MSC, Rickmers and Borchard Lines.

Three automobile terminals are owned by the Port of Piraeus Authority with a total length of 1.4 kilometres, a land area of 180,000 square metres and a storage capacity of 12,000 cars. The terminals handle over one million cars, trucks and buses per annum. General cargo is handled at another PPA terminal with a cargo storage area of 180,000 square metres for all manner of general cargo. The alongside depth of water at all of the PPA container and cargo terminals is between 31 and 35 feet.

Pachi Oil Terminal

The oil terminal for the Piraeus area is located at Megara Bay to the west of Salamis Island at latitude 37-58 North, 23- 23 East. It is owned by the Hellenic Petroleum S.A. (ELPE), which was founded in 1975 as the Public Petrol Corporation to oversee Greek oil industry development. In 1998, the company was privatised and renamed the Hellenic Petroleum S.A. The terminal supplies a refinery in Eleusis and is approached by tankers directly from the deep waters of the bay. Tankers up to 60,000 dwt with a maximum draft of 29 feet berth Starboard Side to Quay (SSTQ). Pilotage is compulsory with pilots boarding tankers to the south west of North Pachi Island. Bunkers for ships in Piraeus harbour are supplied direct from the Eleusis refinery by coastal refuelling tankers e.g. Eko 1 to Eko 5 owned by ELPE of between 3,000 dwt and 5,000 dwt. Two coastal lpg tankers are also operated in Camelot of 6,742 dwt built by the Imabari yard in 2002, and Melina of 5,670 dwt built as Ledagas at Kiel in 1984. The Greek Government currently owns around one third of the shares of ELPE.

Aegean Oil S.A. was founded in Piraeus in 1995 by Dimitris Melissanidis with bunkering and coastal operations at Piraeus. Similar operations were begun at Gibraltar (1997), Fujairah (2000), Jamaica (2004) and Singapore (2006). In May 2007, the Swedish double hulled tanker Nautilus of 7,030 dwt was purchased and renamed Aegean Princess. The company currently has a big fleet of over forty new bunkering and coastal tankers in the range from 3,000 dwt to 7,000 dwt, many built in China. Many have ‘Aegean’ prefixes to their names e.g. Aegean I to Aegean XII, Aegean Ace, Aegean Breeze, Aegean Daisy, Aegean Flower, Aegean Orion, Aegean Princess, Aegean Rose, Aegean Tiffany and Aegean Tulip and are registered under Aegean Oil S.A., while Aegean Champion is a larger tanker of 23,400 dwt purchased in 2009 from Camillo Eitzen Tankers as Sichem Arctic and was built at Kiel in 1991. Other bunkering tankers are registered under Aegean Bunkering Services and are named after Greek islands e.g. Amorgos, Anafi, Andros, Dilos, Halki, Ios, Ithaki, Kalymnos, Karpathos, Kassos, Kefalonia, Kerkyra, Kimolos, Kithnos, Kythira, Lefkas, Leros, Milos, Naxos, Nisyros, Paros, Patmos, Santorini, Serifos, Syros, Tilos and Zakynthos.

Piraeus Salvage and Harbour Tugs

Vernicos Towing and Salvage was founded in 1851 by Emmanuel N. Vernicos (1835- 1915) of Sifnos Island. He started in business by towing petroleum barges from one side of the Bosphorus to the other as well as rowing boats loaded with passengers. After World War I, his son Nicolas E. Vernicos (1869-1947) set up his headquarters in Piraeus, but lost his entire fleet of tugs during the Second World War. His four grandsons of Dimitri, Emmanuel, Constantine and Alexander developed the company into the leading Greek towage and salvage fleet in post-war years, a position it still holds today. The ‘Ifestos’ type of three fire-fighting tugs of 2,700 bhp were completed by the Damen yard in 1979, followed by the ‘Armadores’ type of two tugs of 3,500 bhp in 1981, and the ‘Alexandros’ type of two Voith Schneider tractor tugs of 4,800 bhp in 1989/91 from the Neue Jaderwerft yard in Germany. Recent additions to the fleet include Vernicos Master of 2,600 bhp built in 2006, plus two tugs of similar power, and Svitzer Mermaid of 4,000 bhp, acquired in Dubai in March 2012.

Matsas Towage and Salvage was founded by Loucas G. Matsas in 1880, an Amorgos Islander who soon settled in Piraeus. The company built their first wooden tug, Aghios Georgios, on Sifnos Island for use at Piraeus. At that time, Piraeus had no piers and thus sailing ships and the few steamers anchored in the port and unloaded their cargoes into barges. Aghios Georgios towed barges laden with cargo from Pachi to Piraeus for many years, as well as the staple trade of towing sailing ships into and out of Piraeus. Today, the company is headed by George L. Matsas with a fleet of two powerful salvage tugs and two Piraeus harbour tugs. Matsas Star of 1,300 grt was built in 1977 at Higashino in Japan as Sumi Maru, later becoming Smit Matsas as close ties are maintained with Smit-Tak of Holland and Seacor. Matsas Star has been involved in the salvage of many large ships in Hellenic waters, the Mediterranean, Black Sea and Red Sea. The other current salvage tug is the legendary Asteri of 567 grt built as the first Greek deep sea salvage tug at Perama in 1970. The two Matsas harbour tugs are Amazon and Pegasus, the former Dutch tugs Hector and Simson respectively.

Tsavliris Salvage is the third of the three great Piraeus salvage and towage fleets. Alexandros G. Tsavliris arrived in Piraeus in the mid 1920s as a refugee from Asia Minor, and worked as a deckhand on a tug in the morning, as a clerk in the afternoon, and studied at evening classes to gain an education. He continued his training in London, and acquired a small collier of 1,200 dwt in 1945, renamed as Alexander T. After establishing a fleet of ocean going tramps in post-war years, including fifteen ‘Liberty’ ships and later two SD14s, he turned his attention to salvage tugs in 1964 and acquired the Admiralty tug Hengist renamed as Nisos Crete. He built up a fleet of salvage tugs stationed on stand-by throughout the world, those at Piraeus in 1974 were Nisos Andros and Nisos Zakynthos, which worked in conjunction with Atlas, Matsas and G. L. Matsas of Matsas Salvage, and Vernicos Dimitrios, Vernicos Kitty and Vernicos Manos of Vernicos Salvage. The tug Megas Alexandros towed the ‘Liberty’ ship Arthur M. Huddell from the Hudson River to Piraeus in December 2008, and she opened as a fully restored museum ship in Piraeus as Hellas Liberty in June 2010. The current Tsavliris salvage and towage fleet includes Tsavliris Unity, Tsavliris Hellas, Hermes and Megas Alexandros.

Tsavliris also have on charter one of the two most powerful salvage tugs in the world, the Russian owned twin funnelled Fotiy Krylov of 250 tonnes bollard pull, and with enough range to tow a fully laden VLCC all the way around the world. She was built for Sovtracht with her sister Nikolay Chiker in 1989 by the Hollming yard in Rauma as icebreakers and salvage tugs. They have icebreaker bows and are fitted to support divers, have helicopter landing pads, firefighting and drenching systems, and extra accommodation for 51 crew members and 21 supernumeraries to support difficult salvage operations. They are of 5,205 grt and are powered by quadruple 12-cylinder Wartsila oil engines of 24,484 bhp to give a service speed of 18 knots when running free of a tow. Nikolay Chiker was also on charter to Tsavliris until Millennium year when she returned to Russian naval control.

Several Tyne tugs have been sold for use as Piraeus harbour tugs. Alnmouth was one example after serving for twenty five years from completion in 1962 at the Hessle yard of Richard Dunston Ltd. She was sold in January 1987 for £32,500 to Thiela Shipping of Greece and renamed Thiela. I waved her delivery crew off from the freezing water of Albert Edward Dock at North Shields with ice floating in the dock, and then a few months later in the heat of a Piraeus summer I saw her berthed at Piraeus with a friendly Greek crew sitting on her towing deck. She was still in service in 2005 but renamed Thyella by Igoumenitsa Haftiki Eteria, and had been fitted with a bipod mast behind the funnel surmounted by a fire fighting platform. She is still in service today after over forty years of service and has a white hull and a blue funnel with a blue ‘M’ on a white central band. Other Tyne tugs sold to Piraeus owners included Ironsider of 1967 which became Megalochari XII in 1992, Wearsider of 1980, which became Megalochari VI in 1996, Holmsider of 1984, which became Karapiperis 15 in 1998, and Seasider of 1985, which became Karapiperis 16 in 1999.

Postscript

Piraeus is a very interesting ferry and cruise port and with a very long history of four thousand years. If variety is the spice of life, then Piraeus has it all with many types of ship calling at the port in ferries, cruise ships, general cargo ships, container ships, tankers ships under repair, and with a large fleet of laid up ships in Eleusis Bay. It is a Mecca for shiplovers with opportunities to see all types of veteran ships that see out their days in Greece.

One example was the general cargo ship Orpheus of 13,080 dwt, built in 1956 for Lyras Brothers of Greece by the Kieler Howaldtswerke yard in Germany. She was a closed shelterdecker with five holds, three in front of the superstructure, and two aft, with a good array of twelve derricks on two masts and a pair of kingposts. A service speed of 16 knots for the general tramping trades and charters to liner companies from a 7-cylinder Sulzer diesel of 6,300 bhp was provided. After 21 years service for Lyras Brothers, she was sold in 1977 to the Heracles General Cement Company of Piraeus and renamed Nireus. She had several blue housings installed on her deck to prevent seawater or rainwater reaching the cement powder pumps or the cargo. She was moored at Damietta harbour in 1982 as a cement storage ship, but was reactivated as I saw her underway at Piraeus in June 1994. She was renamed Katerina A in 2000, and arrived at Alicante on 27th November 2006 with her last cargo of cement. She was beached at Aliaga on the last day of 2006 for scrapping after a long career of fifty years.

The Port of Piraeus Authority (PPA) owns the shiprepair subsidiary of NAFSOLP S.A. at Perama with a modern large floating dock of 15,000 tonnes lifting capacity, and a very large floating crane, and other facilities for ship repair. PPA profits for the first nine months of 2014 were 8.644 Million Euros, an increase of 6.36% over the corresponding period of 2013. The biggest container ship ever to dock at Piraeus was the Panama registered MSC London of 16,020 TEU capacity plus 1,100 reefer TEU during 2014 owned by MSC of Italy. The port has 1,100 employees, and I wish to thank the Port of Piraeus Authority and their excellent website www.olp.gr.