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"The Greeks." The master of this seagoing empire is a hawk-nosed, trim (5 ft. 7½ in., 155 Ibs.) man with glossy, grey-flecked black hair and glittering brown eyes that betray an acquisitive, competitive, imaginative mind. The secret of his success is hard work, nerve, intelligence and, say his friends, over and over again, "the ability to see into the future."
In the early postwar years, Niarchos saw the bright future of international trade and plunged into shipping with every drachma he could scrape together while most shipowners were battening hatches to ride out an expected slump. In ten years. Niarchos has not only built his fleet—and a fortune estimated as high as $350 million—but has helped revolutionize the design, financing and operation of tankers, launching a new race of giant ships that is fast changing the economics of merchant marines the world over.
He is the leader of a new band of Argonauts who have given the shipping world a new term: "the Greeks," meaning the independent shipowners of whatever nationality who have sailed on the crest of the postwar shipping boom. Customarily included among "the Greeks" is Midwestern-born Daniel K. Ludwig, 58, whose fleet (estimated at 1.5 million tons) is second only to Niarchos'. Behind Ludwig presses Niarchos' brother-in-law, Aristotle Socrates Onassis. 49, a flamboyant Smyrnan who, with Niarchos. bought the Monte Carlo Casino in 1954, owns some 1.3 million tons of shipping, the world's third biggest independent fleet. Close behind him is Stavros Livanos, spry, 65-year-old father-in-law of Niarchos and Onassis, with some 1.2 million tons. In all, "the Greeks" have more than 9 million tons plying the world's sea lanes.
Oil Is the Key. Thanks largely to the independents, world shipyards today are busier than in any peacetime year in history. From Norway to Nagasaki, slipways are jammed with new hulls. Though they are busily expanding capacity to handle the boom, some shipyards cannot promise delivery before 1962. Anticipating a continued upsurge in world trade (which has already soared 50% since 1948). shipowners are ordering giant new ore carriers, combination ore-petroleum ships, roll-on, roll-off carriers to haul loaded trucks and vans, fast new freighters to slake the world's impatient thirst for machinery and steel, coal, wheat, and other basic raw materials that must be hauled from the ends of the earth (see color pages). Most of all, shipowners are clamoring for tankers. Though the world's tanker fleet has doubled since World War II, oil shipments have grown to 45% of all tonnage moved by ship (v. 21% in 1937), and the fleet is still inadequate for the load. The answer: supertankers.
Like all great ships of the past, from the Greek trireme to the Yankee clipper, the supertanker was launched to meet a specific demand at a specific time. Supertankers have not only kept a vast and constant stream of oil flowing from the Middle East and South America to U.S.
and European refineries, but have proved their economy as well: they can haul oil halfway around the world for 3¢ a gallon, less than the prewar cost. Reason: a 50,000-tonner carries few more crewmen than a 16,600 wartime T-2 tanker, gets more speed, thanks to better hull design, for every unit of horsepower.