F/B Kyklades - Piraeus

F/B KYKLADES

Photo from George Giannakis’s collection #6007

Ship	Kyklades (1972) ΚΥΚΛΑΔΕΣ	Building Spec.	United Shipping Yard, Perama, Greece, 1972 – N°306
Call Sign	SXLA	IMO Number	7014581
GRT	1904	DWT
Dimensions	74,48 x 12,02 x 3,2	Engines	2 MAK 9c, 3.089 kW
Speed	17 knots	Passengers	852
Beds		Cars	52
Lane Metres		Sister ships
Registry Port	Piraeus	Flag	Greek
Former Names/Own.
New Names/Owners	Express Efvoikos – Agapitos Express Ferries 1993-94 Methodia – Ventouris Sea Lines 1994-96 Express Danae – Agapitos Express Ferries 1996-99 Express Danae – Minoan Flying Dolphins / Saronikos Ferries 2000-01 Express Danae – Hellas Flying Dolphins / Saronikos Ferries 2001-04 Erke – Pastel Holdings 2004à
Line

During the Seventies, the Greek yards, especially those ones based in Perama area, were very busy building a considerable number of small car ferries for Greek interests; probably that one was the “Golden Age” of Greek Shipbuilding industry, having as the best products the Hellenic Mediterranean Lines’s ships “Castalia” and “Aquarius”. Also Agapitos family gave work to Greek shipyards and in 1972 took delivery of the small ferry “Kyklades”. I’ve not any information about her past services, but I know that she was operating out of Rafina to Cyclades Islands, most probably serving Andros, Tinos and Mykonos. In 1992, when Agapitos brothers decided to separate their ways by creating Agapitos Lines and Agapitos Express Ferries, this ferry enters Agapitos Express Ferries’s fleet, being the only one former Agapitos Bros vessel to change her name, from “Kyklades” to “Express Efvoikos”. She was not part of Agapitos fleet between 1994 and 1996 : having been sold to Ventouris Lines, a branch of the bigger Ventouris Sea Lines which operated ferries to Saronic islands, was arrested in 1995 due to the bankruptcy of her owners and sold by auction to Agapitos Express Ferries again in 1996, being renamed “Express Danae” to operate on former Ventouris routes to Saronic islands ; finally in 1999 the ship was bought by Minoan Flying Dolphins. After ten years of service to Saronic Islands under three different operators, Hellas Flying Dolphins sold her after its plans to renew the fleet, being the ship bought by Pastel Holdings, which left Greece as the “Erke” under Cambodian flag. I’ve no more notices of the ferry after her farewell to Greece, but she seems still on duty and surely she wasn’t scrapped yet.

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