Tarsanas Shipyard | Boatbuilding on Syros Today
Founded by the Mavrikos family in 1864, the Tarsanas Shipyard is Syros’s oldest and most renowned traditional boatyard. Since its establishment up until the 1980s, it has realized the construction of more than five thousand boats over twenty meters in length, employing and training hundreds of craftsmen and workers in the process. Makis Mavrikos, a fourth generation boatbuilder, maintains the shipyard now, which for the past several years now functions exclusively as a repair/maintenance yard and storage lot for various types of boats.
Over these four generations, boats were primarily constructed using a lofting floor, the most precise and advanced design method in Greek boatbuilding tradition; smaller boats were constructed using the single-mold method. The lofting floor method involves the design of boat elements at true size (1:1 scale) directly on the workshop floor. This process constituted a closely guarded secret, passed along from father to son. Recently, due to a lack of new boat constructions, the lofting floor was disassembled and sent to Samos, where it will be displayed at the Museum of Aegean Boatbuilding and Maritime Crafts.
Due to a fire which broke out at the premises in 1970, much of the boatyard’s archive was lost; what remains has been sourced from the personal archive of Michail Mavrikos, son of Georgios Mavrikos, and the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis, which holds a portion of the archive of boatbuilder Georgios Mavrikos. The collection constitutes a unique chronicle of the social, technical and economic aspects of boatbuilding activity on Syros, including dozens of photographs, diagrams, letters, and other printed matter spanning the course of the 20th century.
1 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
2 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
3 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
4 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
5 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
6 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
7 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
8 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
9 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
10 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
11 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
12 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
13 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
14 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
15 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
16 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
17 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
18 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
19 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
20 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
21 Photograph from Georgios Mavrikos’s personal archive, courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis. Undated.
22 Clipping from “Tharos” newspaper detailing boatbuilding activities of Tarsanas, Sept. 24 1959. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
23 Letter from Georgios Mavrikos to Georgios Grigorakos (1 of 3), c. 1975. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
24 Letter from Georgios Mavrikos to Georgios Grigorakos (2 of 3), c. 1975. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
25 Letter from Georgios Mavrikos to Georgios Grigorakos (3 of 3), c. 1975. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
26 Advertisement brochure for the “Esperus” yacht (front), c. 1963. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
27 Advertisement brochure for the “Esperus” yacht (back), c. 1963. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
28 Mavrikos brothers stationery with bank guarantees for the “Esperus.” Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
29 Note for a telegraph by Georgios Mavrikos to Marie Embiricos detailing sale of the “Esperus” yacht, c. 1963. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
30 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (1 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
31 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (2 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
32 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (3 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
33 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (4 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
34 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (5 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
35 Notebook containing agreement between G. Mavrikos and N. E. Zoumi concerning construction of a fishing boat (6 of 6), c. 1969. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
36 Blueprint of Andreas Embiricos’s boat by Camper & Nicholsons, c. 1957. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
37 Sketch of a bow, undated. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
38 Sketch of a boat, detail of propeller area, undated. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
39 Letter addressed to Andreas Embiricos detailing dimensions of the “Kyma,” (1 of 2) c. 1959. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
40 Letter addressed to Andreas Embiricos detailing dimensions of the “Kyma,” (2 of 2) c. 1959. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
41 Sketch of a 20 m. liberty type boat, undated. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
42 Letter addressed to Nikolaos Mendrinos with a proposal for construction of a 12.5 m “trechantiri” type boat, c. 1966. Courtesy of the Industrial Museum of Hermoupolis.
43 Giorgos Mavrikos at work on the “Eleftheria,” c. 1970.
44 Portrait of Michailos Mavrikos, c. 1960.
45 Combination of “karavoskaro” and liberty type boat under construction, c. 1965.
46 Boatbuilders and clients atop fishing trawler, 1967.
47 Two “karavoskaro” type boats and one “trechantiri” type boat under construction at Tarsanas, c. 1975.
48 Georgios Mavrikos at the lofting floor, c. 1970.
49 Georgios Mavrikos meets King Paul of Greece, 1959.
50 Georgios Mavrikos and the crew of the “Kyma,” c. 196
51 From left: Georgios Mavrikos, Michalis Mavrikos, and two unknown men in front of a “perama” type boat, c. 1946.
52 Portrait of Georgios Mavrikos, undated.
53 From left: Giorgos Mavrikos and Irini Binopoulou, c. 1965.