Bravo!

Memories of the decrepit-looking cargo ship Bravoaltona arriving at Avonmouth in September 1976, and an awareness of a fleet of former Dutch ships with names commencing Bravo, led Malcolm Cranfield to research two different Greek-owned fleets.

The two fleets were Bravo Maritime SA, the origins of which go back to 1962 when Theodore Samourkas (19352009) entered the shipowning business, and A.Varsamis, who started business in 1969 with a second-hand vessel he named Maryva. This vessel largely traded in European waters, but she was lost in November 1972 during a deepsea voyage from Antwerp to Santo Tomás de Castilla, Guatemala, with a cargo of steel and generals. His next ship, Luis, was purchased in 1971 and renamed Bravo Luis in 1977; she traded worldwide until she was laid up in 1982.

His Bravo naming policy started in 1975 on purchasing three ships from Royal Holland Lloyd, which were mainly employed to the Persian Gulf or West Africa.

THEODORE SAMOURKAS

The first vessels purchased by Th. Samourkas were the 1950-built German trawler Strassburg, which he initially named Hermes Protoporus but renamed Evridiki in 1965 and sold in 1969, and the 1942 West Hartlepoolbuilt ‘Scandinavian type’ Pamit, the former Empire Caxton purchased from A. Halcoussis, which he named Christos. She sank on 1 April 1967 after running aground on Kandeliusa Island near Kos during a voyage from Constantza to Hodeidah, Yemen, with a cargo of sugar.