AUTHOR'S NOTE

The fascinating world of Greek shipping

First and foremost, I would like to express our gratitude to the shipowners who opened their home, office, and heart to us, sharing funny, touching, unknown, and truly beautiful stories. It is well known that they avoid any kind of self-promotion protecting their privacy, as they quietly pursue their enterprise. Intelligent and farseeing, prone to brinkmanship and passionate, whatever their character profile is, they are proven winners on the mercurial chessboard of international shipping. Nobody has been able to decode the DNA of successful shipping entrepreneurs that see through the capriciousness of markets and know the right time to buy, sell and build ships to increase their fortunes.

Naftemporiki’s “The Greeks: Masters of the Seas Sharing their Life Story” is addressed to a global readership and compiles many unknown aspects of Greek shipping through the personal accounts of its protagonists. This anthology of “portraits” highlights the lives and actions of women and men that proved with their masterful seafaring achievements that their story is worthy of historic note. Every entrepreneurial journey presented through these narratives is unique and whether it began methodically or by chance, by choice or through necessity, with salient moves or brinkmanship, some secret aspect of the mystique that accompanies each narrator’s personality is revealed. It is this uniqueness and diversity that this special publication set out to chart.

This edition’s purpose is to showcase the definitive and impactful role of major shipping players through their own personal narratives. The contents of this volume are a distillation of an extensive research that included several face-to-face interviews, as well as a deep dive in files and corroborative data. Many of the stories that emerged were largely unknown or anecdotal, some elegantly circumspect, others funny and lighthearted, but always riveting as they were brought to light by those who actually lived them. Shining achievements that were modestly kept away from the public eye are revealed, together with descriptions of events that bear a seal of authenticity that only unmediated testimonies are able to yield.

It was a bit of a challenge to make these idividuals feel comfortable enough to open up as much as they did, and to share very personal recollections and carefully chosen photographs. In all, this effort was well worth pursuing and you can now have an unusually expansive picture of the fascinating world of Greek shipping embellished with many genuine descriptions and pithy details that grace each portrait.