Modern trireme to be made seaworthy
Granting a new lease of life to the languishing modern reconstruction of a 5th-century BC Greek warship, the country’s second-largest shipyards have undertaken to make the 15-year-old wooden vessel seaworthy again. The Greek navy, which owns the 37-meter ship, said yesterday it had accepted a proposal by the Elefsis Shipyards to carry out urgently needed maintenance and repairs on the Olympias trireme. The cost will be covered by the shipyards. The Olympias, which started out as an experiment in naval architecture and managed to settle many of the scholarly disputes regarding the main warship of classical Greeks, is currently displayed out of the water at Palaio Faliron, close to the early 20th-century Averoff heavy cruiser. The trireme has decayed considerably, mainly due to its timbers drying out and the use of diseased wood in previous repairs – which cost 120 million drachmas. The 170-oar vessel cost 200 million drachmas (587,000 euros) to build in 1985-87.
