On Greek Shipping

That Jacqueline Kennedy married a Greek called Aristotle Onassis was known to me. That Onassis was a Greek shipping tycoon was known to me. That the probability of a shipping tycoon being Greek is pretty high was unknown to me – until last month. While reading the investigative thriller ‘Dead in the Water’, I came to know the astonishing fact that 18% of the world’s merchant fleet is owned by the Greeks! So a shipping tycoon being Greek was not all that random a fact! Today, the port of Piraeus in Greece is known as the ship-owning capital of the world.

While geography probably explains some of the reasons for this, a lot probably has to do with the Greek communities that were spread out across the key trading routes. After the Second World War, the Greeks gambled and managed to secure a large number of Liberty Ships from the US – these were ‘disposable’ ships built to withstand the perilous Atlantic voyages. Read more here. While this marked the beginning of the industry, the real spark that ignited it was the discovery of the oil reserves in Saudi.

The post WWII era was also the dawn of the automobile industry. So being able to roll out new-age tankers that could hop across the Middle East and ship oil all over the world, became the trump card for the Greeks. Onassis and Niarchos, two of the most well-known tycoons deserve more credit than anyone else for the development of super-tanker. The two men also popularized the system called “Flags of Convenience”. Under this system, ships began being registered in countries such as Liberia while being owned by Greek businessmen. Today, Panama, the Marshall Islands, and Liberia have more than a third of the global merchant fleet sailing under their flags. There are even flags of convenience available from places like Mongolia and Bolivia, landlocked countries with no actual maritime industries.

Onassis hitting paydirt during the Suez crisis has been documented here.