Saving traditional vessels from the scrap heap
Kathimerini speaks to individuals trying to curb the impact on the local boatbuilding industry of a controversial EU regulation
“You’ll find me if you do a search on the internet. Just type in ‘Christina-Maria, excursions and cooking on a traditional fishing boat on Naxos.’ Did you find it?” Stamatis Sergis is proud of the website created by his daughters. “I have four girls and none wants to work with the boat. I get it. It’s a tough job. You’ve got to love the smell of the sea to do it. This has been my life since I was 10 years old and my father was a fisherman too,” he tells Kathimerini.
Stamatis and Christina-Maria, his boat, are the same age: 60. “I named it after my two eldest daughters. It’s just shy of 15 meters. I overhaul it once a year, maintaining it carefully so it’s like new.”
Sergis has been a captain since the age of 22 and admits that he’s starting to feel the strain in recent years.
“The salary of the guy who used to help me came to 2,000 euros a month, and I barely made any money at all. The seas no longer have the fish they once had and I’m getting older too; I’m no longer who I used to be. I changed the boat’s usage a few months ago. I had a license for fishing and turned it into a fishing-touring boat. I show tourists how we fish with nets, I take them to swimming spots and I cook kakavia, the fisherman’s staple,” he says, referring to the traditional Greek stew. “They love it. I haven’t made a profit yet, but this was just my first year.”
Sergis’ other option was to smash up his boat and claim the compensation he’s entitled to under a controversial European Union directive – at 160,000 euros, it’s not to be sniffed at.
“They’re basically subsidizing fishermen to retire their boats by destroying them. I turned in another boat for ‘cutting,’ as we describe the process. It was 11 meters long and I got 80,000 euros for it. It was a younger vessel and didn’t have the Christina-Maria’s history, but it was still painful. Do you know what it is like to see a bulldozer smashing your boat? It breaks your heart. Not to mention that I’d be at a loss as to what to do if I let it go. The Christina-Maria is my second home,” Sergis tells Kathimerini.
According to estimates from the Traditional Boat Association of Greece, some 13,500 traditional wooden fishing boats were consigned to the scrap heap between 1991, when the EU first started subsidizing the elimination of coastal fishing fleets, and 2020. Their owners received compensation ranging from 80,000 to 160,000 euros from the scheme, which came under heavy fire from critics who said the measure was destroying an important part of Southern Europe’s cultural heritage. Owners who decided to save their vessels by turning them into touring boats were entitled to just 20% of that compensation.
The head of the Greek association, Nikos Kavallieros, a retired coast guard admiral and a native of the island of Naxos, remembers the first time he saw a traditional fishing boat, or caique (kaiki in Greek) being destroyed. “The mother of the fisherman who had given it up was sobbing inconsolably. She told us that this fishing boat got her married, gave her a home and helped her raise her children. Her son had to walk away at some point; he couldn’t bear the sight. But even more heart-wrenching than the sight of the bulldozer smashing the caique was the sound of the wood resisting the blows. That sound scarred me. The last caique to be destroyed was four years ago and we know that there are another 70 waiting to get the chop if the program goes back into operation,” says Kavallieros.
The association’s purpose is to salvage not just fishing boats, but all traditional Greek wooden boats and the activities related to them, such as boatyards and ship carpenters
The association’s purpose is to salvage not just fishing boats, but all traditional Greek wooden boats and also the activities related to them, such as boatyards and ship carpenters.
“For example, there used to be caiques all across the Cyclades and Dodecanese islands that were used to transport goods and people. Now there are no more than 10 or 15 of them. As for the boatyards, there were around 350 and now there are just 30 or 35 using traditional methods. The majority of the ones that shut down turned into beach bars named Karnagio,” he says, pointing out the irony of naming these businesses after the Greek word for boatyard.
Lena Stefanou is an archaeologist and museum curator who in 2014 assumed the task of designing the main exhibition for the Museum of Aegean Boatbuilding and Maritime Crafts (MNNTA), a project that just entered the final stretch.
“We’re hoping that the museum will be ready to open in a year. It is, in one sense, a technology museum as it relates to the craftsmanship, tools and methods traditionally used by boatbuilders who worked by hand. Boat carpentry is a craft that has been passed down from generation to generation orally. It was customary for a master boatbuilder to mentor a younger member of his family in the craft. So, what we have is an informal method of teaching that is particularly demanding as it relates to a very difficult technique and a terminology of its own,” says Stefanou, adding that wooden boatbuilding has also been inducted into the National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
“It may entail tangible materials that are used for construction, but the challenging heritage is the oral knowledge that is at risk of disappearing,” she adds.
Visitors to the Samos museum will be able to learn about Greece’s rich history of wooden boatbuilding, which stretches back to ancient times. Exhibits include tools, life-sized models of sections of different types of boats, a plethora of information concerning different techniques and the oral testimonies of boat carpenters.
“There are more than 200 such interviews in the Archive of Oral Testimonies, comprising personal narratives on the subjects’ lives, on their professional activities, the techniques employed at boatyards, the supplementary professions and the ritual and social customs of seafarers. We are also planning an open conservation workshop so that visitors can watch and participate, at least in minor repair work,” explains Stefanou.
Another project that is in the works is a boatbuilding school, also on the island of Samos, which will seek to attract new members into the dying profession.
Dimitris Stavrakopoulos, a resident of Syros and aficionado of all things related to maritime traditions, owns two caiques: The Isabella M., a traditional 4-meter boat built in 1963 at the Fouski boatyard in Syros, and the Kallia M., a 7-meter “trechandiri,” a wooden fishing boat with sails, known for its speed and agility, built in 1983. Both were used for fishing but Stavrakopoulos acquired them as part of his bid to salvage the craft.
“A wooden caique is so much more than a boat; it’s a work of art that bears the signature of many different craftsmen, from those who maintain the wood to those who make the sails and metal parts,” he says, explaining how he keeps one for his own personal use and uses the other for paid excursions.
“When you step onto such a caique, you feel pride. What do you feel when you step into a plastic one? Nothing at all.”
