Danaos traditionally continues its volunteering program by cleaning up this year as well one of Attica’s beaches, contributing to the HELMEPA clean coast act scheme. On Sunday the 4th of October 2015 Danaos employees with their families came together under the bright sun and cleaned up “Votsalakia” beach in Piraeus. Even though it was quite a warm day, the team filled up and recycled several bags of waste, leaving in their path a beach much cleaner than it was before.

Keeping our beaches clean and maintaining our corporate environmental mentality is one of our top priorities, this is why we team up with HELMEPA every year!

And that was not the end of the day! After a short break for coffee and refreshments, we visited the legendary “SS Hellas Liberty”, which, nowadays is a floating museum in Piraeus. Built in early 40’s as a cargo/merchant ship amongst the series of the well known “Liberty Ships” by a US shipyard, “SS Hellas Liberty” under her first name “SS Arthur M. Huddell” originally carried explosives to Europe and in 1944 she was converted to a pipe carrier. After the end of the war, she was laid up until 1956, when converted to a cable laying vessel. She was transferred to the US, where she was used to support cable operations for the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS), up until 1984. From then on and until 2008, the vessel had been in cold lay-up condition.
In 2008, “SS Arthur M. Huddel” was towed from Norfolk, Virginia to the main harbor of Piraeus, in order to be converted into a museum ship. For the two following years, the ship underwent general repairs and conversions at the ports of Salamis and Perama, in Greece, since she was in severe state of decay. Many Greek ship owners gladly contributed as benefactors to its repair & maintenance costs (which they still unanimously fund). Eventually, in June 2010, she was presented to the public in her restored form and renamed to “SS Hellas Liberty”.
Presently docked at Vasiliadis coast, the crew in charge welcomed all our team onboard and after a short video presentation, we had the chance to get a picture of the Greek merchant maritime industry evolution after the 2nd World War and to travel through history at a time when navigation depended mostly on seafaring skills.