The “Paporias” of Chios
A meeting with boatbuilder Dimitris Morakis
“The Argonauts, the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Battle of Salamis, they wouldn’t have existed without sailboats.” »
The radio is playing Zampetas’s song, the one that captures the Greek maritime tradition in just four lines, as we enter the space that houses Dimitris Morakis’s boatyard at the beach of Kontari, 5km from Chora. To our left stands the imposing Rouchouniotissa, the last of the Greek motor ships. Her presence is like a welcoming sign into a land that bears testament to the decline of the art of boatbuilding. This is where we met Mr. Morakis, the “Paporias” of Chios, and asked to learn more about his life and art.
“I hail from Asia Minor, whose people have the sea in their blood. If you tell your mother that you need to have a tooth extracted, she will tell you to ‘go to the sea’. If your throat hurts, she will tell you the same thing.”
“I was raised in Ftochia Prokimea (note: the northern part of the port of Chios, roughly translated as Poor Man’s Dock). I woke up every morning to the rattling of the ratchets attached to the anchor windlasses of small sailboats. I heard the sound of anchor chains as they were thrown into the water. This forest of masts had an enchanting effect on me.”


“When I was 15, I tried my luck as a sailor for two years. I quickly went back to the art that had enraptured me since day one: the art of boatbuilding. The reason for my infatuation was the fact that as a boatbuilder you follow a simple process: you go to the woods, pick a tree and turn it into a boat. This art gives you the magical opportunity to transform this tree. You take something useful from the land, but you give something useful in return. You create the land of the sailors. You build a bridge that leads them to the other side. A tree belongs to everyone, but if you think about it, it gets reincarnated into something that still belongs to the world.”
This story is from KEOS issue three