HELLENIC LINES AND THE END OF THE ‘CONVENTIONAL’ ERA

In the early 1980s the era of the conventional cargo ship was coming to an end as containerisation swept across the globe, and shipping companies either joined the revolution, switched to specialised cargoes or perished. One of the last operators of conventional breakbulk tonnage in the liner trades was Hellenic Lines of Greece, a company founded before World War II but suffering financially by the late 1970s as it attempted to quickly containerise its aging fleet.

Hellenic had been established in 1934 by Pericles G. Callimanopulos, who had owned or partially owned several tugboats and steamships in the 1920s. His inauguration of a liner service from Greece to northern Europe in the mid-1930s led to the establishment of Hellenic Lines Ltd and made Callimanopulos one of very few Greek owners to move into liner shipping, with Hellenic eventually becoming the unofficial national carrier of Greece.

In 1981 my wife and I were introduced to Hellenic Lines and its history by Mrs Kathryn Theodoropoulos at the company’s Piraeus office when we booked passage back to the Unites States after a residency in Egypt. At the time Hellenic was one of the few remaining cargo ship operators on the Atlantic that still accepted passengers, most of its ships accommodating up to 12 in double-berth cabins.

Realising my interest in Greek shipping, and my wife’s Greek heritage, Mrs Theodoropoulos introduced us to Gregory Callimanopulos, who