The shipyards of Ierissos

This is the most impressive location of shipyards (karnagia) in Greece! It is an integral part of the region’s cultural history and the few remaining shipbuilders in Ierissos are facing difficult economic conditions, due to the modern era’s extensive use of plastic and other materials in shipbuilding. None of the remaining shipyards of Ierissos preserves nowadays the intensity and vividness of the past. Some of the hangars are crumbling and not every facility is operational. However, the shipbuilding designs remain in the minds and hearts of the shipbuilders, those who in the old days were brought 300 tons of “round” wood (pine trees mainly) so they could build large wooden hulls that could fit as many as 250 people!

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Over 100 people were occupied in the four large karnagia of Ierissos, during the previous century and many families lived by this traditional Greek activity of transforming wood into a live ship that confronts the sea.