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> Costas Lemos, 60, is by far the wealthiest of all Greek shipowners. His net worth: about $750 million. At the end of World War II, he owned a shipping line, but no ships at all. The war had destroyed 70% of the Greek merchant fleet, including the three Lemos vessels. To replace them, Lemos bought three U.S. Liberty ships at cut-rate prices. Like many other Greeks, he has devised quite a few new methods and designs, including a combination liquid-dry cargo ship that can haul a load of oil on an outbound voyage and return with a cargo of coal. Partly because of his inventiveness, he has accumulated a fleet of 60 ships totaling 4,500,000 tons; another 2,000,000 tons are on order.
> John C. Carras, 60, inherited a small line that his grandfather started with a rowboat. Carras has built it into a 1,000,000-ton fleet, partly because he was early to appreciate the abilities of the Japanese to build ships at low cost. Of the 19 ships that he now has on order, 17 are being built in Japan. — Nikolas Papalios, 56, went into business after World War II with a 210-ton fishing boat, built in 1895, that he converted into a freighter. By 1957, he owned five small ships and was able to buy a U.S. Liberty. He had the idea of paying bonuses to his crew for fast loading and quick turnarounds. "I knew how to get the most out of a ship," he says. By the end of this year, the Papalios fleet will number 39 vessels.
> Menis Karageorgis, 36, worked as a ship's master on one of his father's two freighters before he took over in 1959. "I bought my first ship with my father's good name as the only guarantee, but that was enough," he says. With that kind of credit, plus hard work and luck, he has built up a fleet of 600,000 tons. He takes pride in knowing by name all the crewmen on his 20 ships.
> Minos Colocotronis, 50, has accumulated 30 ships totaling 1,000,000 tons in just about four years. Instead of placing orders with shipyards and waiting two or three years for delivery, he buys secondhand ships. This protects him against drops in freight rates between ordering and the time of delivery.
Sumptuous Style. Shipping last year brought Greece $243 million in foreign currency, or slightly more than the nation earned from its second-biggest industry, tourism. Some shippers estimate that earnings would rise to $500 million yearly if the military government of George Papadopoulos took steps to encourage more owners to register their ships under the Greek flag. The dictatorship has won the shipowners' enthusiastic support by moving in that direction. A recent decree exempts new Greek-flag ships from taxes until they are ten years old. Shipowners even have priority on international telephone calls; they get through from Athens to London in a few minutes, while ordinary Greeks often have to wait for hours.