Shipowner Gerasimos Agoudimos dies at 76

Prominent Greek shipowner Gerasimos Agoudimos, whose GA Ferries company was best known for its ferry services to and from the Greek islands, has died, it was announced on Tuesday.

The Cephalnoian entrepreneur died on Saturday at the age of 76 in a hospital in southern Italy, where he and his family had been living for the past few years, though the exact circumstances were not made public.

GA Ferries was launched in 1991 with the ferryboats Daliana and the Rodanthi, the latter named after Agoudimos’s wife, adding the Romilda and the Milena in 1993 and the Marina the year after, among other vessels sailing to and from the Greek islands.

GA Ferries declared bankruptcy in 2011 and Agoumidos had several cases pending against him for unpaid debts at the time of his death, while of the company’s nine surviving ships at the time, most have been seized by creditors.

The company managed a total of 15 ferry boats over the years, the most famous of which was the Dimitroula, which was built in Italy in 1977 and served the Thessaloniki-Crete-Sporades and later the Piraeus-Cycladic Islands-Dodecannese-Alexandroupoli routes.

Gerasimos Agoudimos is survived by his wife and their five children.