Thousands of traditional boats being smashed by EU bulldozers

[Fanny Haddock]

There may be better sources for this story, but I found it link below. The salient paragraph in bold.

Greek traditional wooden boat builders a dwindling craft

Wooden boats are an integral part of the Greek landscape, adorning tourist brochures, postcards and countless holiday snaps. They have been sailing across Greece for centuries, used as fishing boats, to transport cargo, livestock and passengers and as pleasure craft. But the art of designing and building these vessels, done entirely by hand, is under threat. Fewer people order wooden boats since plastic and fiberglass ones are cheaper to maintain. And young people aren’t as interested in joining a profession that requires years of apprenticeship, is physically and mentally draining and has an uncertain future.

“It is a traditional craft which is slowly dying, and yet it’s treated as if it were a simple manufacturing or supply business. There is no support from the state,” he said. What’s more, for years the European Union, of which Greece is a member, has subsidized the physical destruction of these vessels as a way of reducing the country’s fishing fleet. The practice has led to thousands of traditional fishing boats, some described by conservationists as unique works of art, being smashed by bulldozers."

Really? There's nothing better to do with them?

 

[jordanbasset]

Decided to delete post, better said by the below posts
.

 

[Fanny Haddock]

I was thinking more of their use (& destruction) rather than than their creation.

Did no one want to sail them, or were they not trusted to go sailing without fishing?

 

[vas]

Not as simple as that. Commercial traditional fishing boats have to be converted to leasure craft before effectively rebuilt for the new use. Maintenance is high, costs escalating quickly, not many are interested it seems. Further space utilisation is frankly crap. Only viable on newish built 16+ m ones. Newish as in sub 40yo.
Finally frames and planking is done with pine which is not ideal for seawater....

Btw, not read this particular article linked by the op

V

 

[duncan99210]

The fishing fleet reduction programme was predicated on removing any possibility of the boats removed from the fleet re-entering the fleet at some future time, hence the boats had to be physically destroyed to qualify for the payments to their owners. That applied to all the boats, no matter what nationality.
Whilst I understand the concern about the apparent waste, most of the boats removed from the fleets were not viable propositions for conversion to other uses even if the regulations were changed to permit conversion rather than destruction. Unsuitable timber; worn out engines, hull design unsuited to conversion to leisure use: it simply doesn’t make sense to try and reuse the boats. There are enough abandoned project boats lurking in yards to demonstrate the futility of thinking reuse of fishing boats is a sensible choice.

 

[oldgit]

UK boatyards are full of rotting wooden restoration projects under disintegrating canvas tarps.
Started by romantic owners and long abandoned to the weather when reality bites . The yard in front of my house has several examples.
Not just wood either , one glassfibre boat has been lying untouched for around 20 years, giving the yard owner a regular income for all that time.
In my experience in the past working boats were kept going long after their sink by date with precious little life left in them other than for burning and extracting the lead, copper and brass from the ashes.

 

[[70521]]

As @oldgit says the world is littered with rotting hulks. It is great to see one country start clearing them up.

If only the UK would do the same, but sadly unless somebody can make money out of it, it will never be done. Yes, I did do the costings as a possible start up company before I retired.

 

[Aeolus]

I feel compelled to comment on the title of this thread. There are no EU bulldozers, so it's nonsense to state they are causing damage to anything. [Inappropriate content removed]

If anyone wants to report this post, then my defenses are that the word nonsense means ' no sense' and is not a derogatory term. [Inappropriate content removed]

 

[sarabande]

There's a website dedicated to saving wooden Greek fishing boats.

Help save the last Greek wooden fishing boats (traditional caiques) (avaaz.org)

 

[Fanny Haddock]

I feel compelled to comment on the title of this thread. There are no EU bulldozers, so it's nonsense to state they are causing damage to anything.

It's hard to fit, "Privated owned Long Reach Excavators, sub-contracted by the Ministery of Fisheries,under the guidance of an EU Financed Compensation Scheme' into the title of a post, the headline of a news story, or even a newspaper byline, so we just say, "EU bulldozers" & everyone understands.

I hope someone's at least keeping key examples for the same of the historical record.

 

[vas]

well, even the title in quotes is completely wrong (as far as Greece is concerned) but that's normal for anything "journalists" write these days...
As I said cannot bother reading carp online, in GR there's no ministry of Fisheries for starters, EU compensation scheme does exist (at set intervals - fe not running now afaik) when it does, poor fishing boat owner pays excavator owner/operator from his money to smash his boat in the boatyard in front of bored officialdom that have to sign the destruction for the poor man to get his money.
A few heart attacks have happened on the boatyard, sometimes owner cannot stand the event and his children/wife is only present...

Further, Volos port and adjuscent bay still has over 100 traditional fishing boats ranging from 5m to10m (the majority) all the way to 20-24m (around a dozen pieces). I'd dare say 2-3% are recreational craft (15-18m converted ones) the rest are professional fishing. The issue is that fishing is not a v.profitable profession these days, so retiring fisherman have noone to take over so boats get neglected or cut eventually. V.interesting the fact that nowadays in the fishing part of Volos port next to where my boat lives, 95% of the fishing fleet is traditional, v.few have opted for plastic fantastic hulls (2 exist that immitate accurately the shape of the traditional ones, a couple of others are SD fiberglass hulls with a small pilothouse around 10m long). Most worrying is the average age of fisherman > 50+

I guess if they were made out of iroko frames and planking and not pine, the larger ones could be converted. As it stands life over 40 gets difficult and expensive. It's refreshing to see there are still boatyards in the north of GR and a few isles that continue the tradition and still built such boats now - half a dozen yards maybe a bit more, haven't checked thoroughly. Sadly still use resinated pine from certain parts of Greece!

V.