Tugs pulled the 107-year-old
battleship Georgios Averof to Trocadero marina in southern Athens
on Wednesday, July 26, 2017. Following an intense three months of maintenance and
conservation work, this dreadnought is back in her berth in
Athens, where she serves as a floating museum.
A naval band played, attending
ships and boats sounded their horns and a naval helicopter flew overhead as Georgios Averof was tugged in to her dock.
Three tugs moved the 10,000-ton
former Greek navy flagship from a shipyard in Skaramangas, where the repairs
were carried out with private funding, through the straits of Salamis to
Trocadero in Athens.
Named after the Greek businessman
who partly financed the huge cost of the ship's purchase [an interesting habit! - ed.], the armored cruiser
was built in an Italian shipyard in 1910 and was at the time the most feared
warship in the Aegean Sea.
The ship served in the Greek navy during
the Balkan wars in 1912-1913, playing a leading role in victorious encounters
with the Ottoman Turkish navy, helping free a few of the Greek islands in the
northeastern Aegean and securing Greek naval dominance in the archipelago.
She also saw active service during
World War II, when she was based in Alexandria, Egypt, after the fall of Greece
to German forces. After the war ended, Georgios Averof carried the Greek government-in-exile
back to Athens.
 |
| Her bridge - not so different from WWII vintage US Navy ships |
The Georgios Averof was decommissioned in 1952, and spent the next quarter-century moored, and decaying, on the island of
Poros, until the
mid-1980s when the navy restored her and made the ship into a museum.
The 460-foot (140-meter) ship will
open again to visitors in September, following further refurbishment at its
berth (not unlike USS Constitution). The ship boasts an attendance of about 60,000 visitors per year.
Until next time,
Fair winds,
Old Salt
PS. Maritime Maunder has now exceeded 65,500 readers! Hard to fathom that! Thank you all!
No comments:
Post a Comment