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Dream: Inside the Breathtaking Conversion of the 106.5 Metre Superyacht

First published in the February 2019 edition of Boat International .

A life’s goal has been realised with Dream, a 106.5-metre conversion so massive and ambitious in its scale it would have been quicker and easier to start from scratch...

I’m doused from collar to sopping sandal in brine from a wave that has just crashed over the RIB’s bow – and the seascape before us is lively enough to whiten knuckles on grab handles. The côte may look particularly azure in the autumn sunshine but ploughing out of Monaco’s Port Hercule, tenders – and motherships – are bouncing around in an unstately fashion. Our target yacht is about the only stable point on the horizon, which is rather comforting.

As we step on to the broad swim platform and up to the aft deck, feeling a little as if we’ve just been rescued, 106.5-metre Dream towers above us, overwhelming in scale. And that’s just what you can see from the aft deck: there are also two lifts and four staircases for guests alone; a 260-square-metre master cabin, a 400-square-metre main saloon, a cinema and 22 guest cabins; a hotel-sized warren of crew and service areas (where a kindly stewardess tumble-dries my dress); six pantries and more than 270 kilometres of electrical cable powering it all. There are so many enormous decks that the GA takes up two whole pages at the end of this feature.

But then this boat has been a very long time in the making. “In 1953, at the age of seven, while dinghy sailing in the Glyfada gulf, outside my house, I came across the Onassis-owned Christina, the first real superyacht,” recalls  Dream ’s owner, George J Prokopiou. “I remember approaching the yacht’s stern on which Winston Churchill was smoking his cigar. This image has stuck with me ever since and generated the dream of a large yacht as a world cruising platform.”

Today, like Onassis, Prokopiou can properly be called a Greek shipping tycoon, having founded Dynacom Tankers, the shipping group Sea Traders and LNG transport company Dynagas. He has an engineering mind, extensive shipbuilding experience and his sea legs also extend to his leisure time, with a collection of four large motor and sailing boats – recently adding 69.5-metre Oceanfast  Nomad  to the collection. He chose to build  Dream  because “I could not find anything on the market to fulfil my needs and wishes”. He had also met naval architect Nikolas Dendrinos – “We share the same passion for sailing, yachting and the sea” – and they decided they could do something special together.

Dendrinos recalls: “He found this small passenger ship through a friend and he thought it would be a good idea for a conversion project. It was delivered in 1997 – it was doing cruises around the Mediterranean.” Dendrinos, who project-managed  Dream , works for Athens-based Olympic Yacht Services, owned by Prokopiou’s shipping company.

Established during the build, it now undertakes the operation, repairs, rebuilds and technical management of all the owner’s boats and plans to take on more clients in the 60-metre-plus range. “The other different thing about this project is that he wanted to build a boat himself,” says Dendrinos. “So this means that we hired a place in a shipyard in Greece and we organised from scratch. We designed, engineered and built everything for this project. We produced internally all the construction drawings for steel, systems, piping, integration and interior sub-constructions. We had subcontractors only for painting and the interiors.”

They also assembled a crack team of workers and designers with a wealth of experience, tapping established Greek-born, Italy-based yacht designer  Giorgio Vafiadis  to pen the new exterior and GA. Interior designers  Simone Ciarmoli and Miguel Queda  worked for years at powerhouse fashion brands, including Valentino, Prada and Armani before founding their own interior design firm, Ciarmoli Queda Studio, in Milan in 2009. Ciarmoli notes that making a success of the unorthodox set-up was one of their greatest achievements. “It was not like  Lürssen  or  Baglietto  or  Azimut . It was us: Simone and Miguel [and Vafiadis]; it was George, Nikolas and his team. And it was a big challenge,” he says.

Given the scope of the conversion this was certainly an ambitious project to tackle independently – the only original elements to remain were the hull and the engine room. So why do it this way? If you’re replacing so much, why not build from scratch? “I do know that he enjoys very much the construction at every stage,” says Vafiadis. “He was going to the yard almost every other day. And he likes to see the things coming. So once you have something existing it is easy to see what is coming – if you start from zero, you don’t see what is coming. Although you see renderings, it’s not like seeing the thing and saying here we do this, there we do that.”

As Prokopiou recalls: “Every evening we had an hour-long phone call with Nikolas reviewing all these [details]. This was a pleasure. I think as much as possible in terms of every detail, because I enjoy having such a good response; giving a small idea and then to see it in a drawing the next day – this is a huge advantage and it gives you the courage to do more things. You just say an idea, and then immediately… improved.”

In this way the mast, the swimming pool and the location of the helipad were all edited during the build. The method may ultimately have worked but he also reflects with frankness on the scope of the conversion.“In hindsight we should have started from scratch given the scale of the rebuild. [It] would have been simpler, faster and cheaper,” Prokopiou says.

The team’s efforts were aimed at some clearly defined goals. For the exterior design, says Vafiadis, “he wanted a classic style and he liked the look of something between a yacht and a ship. He didn’t want anything contemporary.” As Dendrinos puts it: “He wanted to have a classic nautical feel.” In terms of lifestyle, Prokopiou wanted plenty of cabins for family and guests, but also office space for himself and his colleagues, and excellent communications so that they could work effectively – this had to be a yacht he could live on. “The boat is made in a way that several groups of people can enjoy it without interfering one with the other,” says Vafiadis. “There can be a family group on one side of the boat and business people can be on the other.”

Another feature on the list was a quiet and vibration-free interior “even when sailing at full speed in bad weather”. To this end, Dendrinos installed huge volumes of insulation as well as floating walls and ceilings. Also requested were iPad controls (these are everywhere, even in guest cabins) and easy access to the sea for swimming, diving and watersports. For this, as well as a dive store and space to keep rugged tenders and the overhead cranes to launch them, there is a 42-square-metre, 12-tonne stern door that opens on to the sea. There’s also dynamic positioning for dives in protected areas where you can’t drop anchor.

More unusually, Prokopiou requested opening windows throughout, so that a natural breeze rather than air con could ventilate the boat in warm weather. In response, there are 66 opening portholes, 20 manually opening windows and 112 electrically opening windows, 500 kilograms each, 60 millimetres thick, custom made in Germany by Fehrmann and (the electric ones) controlled by iPads integrated to the “infotainment” system by VBH. “I think we have overdone it – in the toilet, instead of four windows opening, one would have been enough!” says the owner. To meet class safety requirements, all the windows are controlled by the Kongsberg Alarm Control and Monitoring System, which monitors them individually. Proximity switches tell it which are open, and they can be closed or locked automatically from the wheelhouse if necessary.

But first and foremost Prokopiou required a large and comfortable living space with balanced design – not too much of a problem with 4,702 gross tonnes to play with and the owner’s wife, Alexandra, on hand for decor selections. The request was for formality, but Ciarmoli and Queda steered away from dark woods. “I said, ‘OK, if you want formality why don’t we think about Marie Antoinette and Versailles.’”

Dream  is no confection: their interpretation of this style focuses on decorative wood panelling as well as delicate blue tones and acres of shagreen (invented by Jean-Claude Galluchat for Madame de Pompadour). It’s elegant and restrained – they cite minimalist master Jean-Michel Frank as an influence. But there are also nautical flights of fancy: in trompe l’oeil mosaics of sea creatures, or the insides of lifts decorated to feel as if you’ve dived into the blue.The vast array of spaces that Prokopiou and designers created are uniformly astonishing in scale and detail.

The more unusual ones include an intimate dining saloon set up around a central grill for teppanyaki and decorated in black and red lacquer like a glossy bento box; an owner’s deck that sprawls through a private dining room, office, steam bath, al fresco spa pool, cabins for immediate family and a lot more; VIP cabins in aqua tones with their own drinks cabinets and baths, and which open directly on to broad side decks; a main saloon centred with a ceiling light feature “like an oyster pearl”, says Ciarmoli, above powder-blue upholstery, which flows around to a mirrored bar and ceiling lights that recall abstract fishing nets. Further forward, the towering, multi-deck atrium in marble and glass is the architectural equivalent of a jewellery box, displaying the boat’s grand scale to spectacular effect.

Supporting all this is some serious tech. The wheelhouse has been rebuilt with an integrated bridge that allows the captain to watch and control the engine room and all systems, as well as monitor CCTV and night vision cameras. There’s also a sophisticated cruise-ship-style fire alarm system with a display to show the status of fire doors and temperature of all areas – and there are vertical escape routes from all compartments. “[Below decks] we stripped the engine room and rebuilt the engines and the generators. We have very good engines and generators,” says Dendrinos.

Aside from that, as he puts it, “everything you see on the GA is new”, and the bow, stern and all of the superstructure are new steel constructions. Under the waterline are controllable pitch propellers with independent rudders, a bow thruster and zero speed stabilisers – all super-sized, since  Dream  is one big boat.

Unusually for an owner, Prokopiou is also excited by the least glamorous kit on board. “It is interesting to see the kitchen, the refrigerators, because this is the heart of any ship. I have been to tankers, bulk carriers and LNG carriers, so I have seen a lot of the shipyards,” he says. But his favourite space on board? “The diving centre with all its toys and diving gear,” he says. “I like this space because it opens up to the sea and provides the perfect place for enjoying swimming, diving and watersports. It is the centre of the boat during the summer months.”

It’s easy to imagine Prokopiou whiling away an afternoon here, rightfully satisfied with the superyacht that he has created in his very own way. Perhaps he might even spot a small boy in a little dinghy in the distance, conceiving his own dream.

Dream won a World Superyacht Award in 2019 . Click below to register for the 2020 virtual World Superyacht Award ceremony, which will take place on Friday, November 13.

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106-metre mega yacht Dream ready for world-wide cruise after decade-long rebuild

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Written by Rachael Steele

Grecian billionaire George Procopiou has realised his life-long desire to travel the world as a decade-long rebuild on 106m/348ft luxury yacht DREAM .

Relaunched superyacht Dream

Once a passenger yacht built by Turkish shipyard Halic Tersaneleri , a redesign was initially unveiled by Giorgio Vafiadis & Associates design studio in 2008 with a completion date of 2011, however it wasn’t until 2013 that she was heard from again as superyacht PROJECT POSEIDONOS, when Milan-based CQS announced that they had been put in charge of interior design.

Superyacht Dream

The interior rebuild includes facilities for a wellness centre, a business centre, three formal dining rooms and accommodation for up to 46 guests over 23 cabins.

Interior render

The owner intends to cruise around the world on his newly rebuilt superyacht, which he describes as an ambition he has held since he was seven years old.

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "106-metre mega yacht Dream ready for world-wide cruise after decade-long rebuild".

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NOMAD Yacht – Awe-inspiring $50M Superyacht

NOMAD was first delivered in 2003 from the Australian shipyard Oceanfast.

Since then, NOMAD has been refitted and features an interior design from Oceanfast and an exterior design by Sam Sorgiovanni. The 69m yacht is opulent, luxurious, and perfect for an entertaining family in style.

NOMAD yacht interior

The interior design of the NOMAD yacht is elegant and perfect for luxury cruising. Designed by Oceanfast, there are accommodations for 12 guests in a master suite, 2 VIP staterooms, one double cabin, two twin cabins, and 2 Pullman beds.

There are facilities for 15 crew members, which ensures guests experience a luxury cruising experience.

The yacht features an impressive swim-up bar in the pool, a nine-person Jacuzzi, a state-of-the-art entertainment system, a BBQ on deck, and a movie cinema. The helipad only adds to the impressive amenities.

The elegance of the interior design is topped off with a Steinway piano. The yacht is perfect for entraining family and friends and offers a luxury cruise experience.

The garage is packed with water toys, including cruiser jet skis, towable toys, wakeboards, water skis, an inflatable trampoline, diving equipment, and more.

Featuring an exterior design by Sam Sorgiovanni , the 69m yacht was built by Oceanfast in Australia. The superyacht was first delivered in 2003 and was later refitted in 2008.

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Specifications

With an overall length of 69m, the NOMAD yacht has a beam of 11.58m and a draft of 3m. She displaces 1260 gross tons and is powered by 2 Caterpillar engines .

Her engines give her a maximum speed of 12 knots and a cruising speed of 17 knots.

Her range can cover 3000 nautical miles at her cruising speed. With a total price of $50 million, she has a running cost of $5 million per annum.

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Shipowner George Prokopiou named highest bidder for Skaramangas shipyard

A double tender for the sale of Hellenic Shipyards SA, the country’s biggest shipyard, in the western Attica port town of Skaramangas, concluded on Wednesday with shipowner George Prokopiou named the highest bidder.

According to well-informed sources, Prokopiou entered a bid of 37.3 million euros to acquire the plot being sold Hellenic Public Properties Company (ETAD), outbidding Pyletech, which is owned by Theofilos Priovolos.

Prokopiou also bid 25.2 million euros for the second part of the 700,000-square meter shipyard that is controlled by the company’s special administrator, above Pyletech’s offer of 22.1 million euros.

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13 George Prokopiou, Dynacom/Dynagas

At dynagas, founder and owner george prokopiou has continued expanding his footprint in lng, albeit at a gentler pace. meanwhile dynacom has a fleet of about 60 tankers and is one of the world’s biggest suezmax owners.

• 13 Dec 2019
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Hands-on owner has been a bold individualist and innovator during a long career in shipping, but he prioritises the ‘doable’

AT first glance, George Prokopiou’s profile as a shipowner closely shadows that of fellow Greek magnate John Angelicoussis.

However, comparisons falter when confronted with such an individualistic business personality as Mr Prokopiou.

He has always had his own vision of shipping markets and been prepared to back his judgement — most obviously in the tanker market, where his Dynacom fleet has traditionally been a spot market player.

Hands-on, with an engineering mind and a believer in innovation, he was the first independent shipowner to see the potential of Arctic liquefied natural gas operations and to invest in ice-class 1A and winterised gas vessels.

His first three LNG carriers were delivered in 2007-8 and were supported by the owner for a number of years as the expected spot market for LNG shipments remained stubbornly underdeveloped.

It took a while for the strategy to visibly pay off. However, in 2012, Mr Prokopiou’s company became the first to transit the Northern Sea Route through the Arctic with an LNG carrier, one of his original trio.

By the time Dynagas LNG Partners was formed and launched its initial public offering on Nasdaq in November 2013, it had a portfolio of long-term charters to wave before investors.

As of November 2019, the US-listed partnership’s fleet of six vessels had average remaining charters of close to nine years’ duration, while the private arm, Dynagas Holdings, operates a fleet of nine more LNG carriers on the water, all but one of which are on long-term charter to Russia’s giant Yamal project.

Four are contracted to Yamal for 15 years and Dynagas owns a 49% stake, with Chinese partners owning the remaining interests, in five newly built Arc-7 icebreaking LNG carriers contracted to the project until end-2045.

Taken together, the fleet of Dynagas Partners and sponsor Dynagas Holdings currently has an 82% share of the world fleet of LNG carriers with 1A ice-class or equivalent.

Mr Prokopiou has continued expanding his footprint in LNG, albeit at a gentler pace. Two 174,000 cu m dual-purpose regasification vessels are on order at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding for 2021.

In 2019, Dynagas contracted a brace of 180,000 cu m vessels with Hyundai Heavy Industries for 2022 delivery, but he has cast some doubt over whether more orders will follow any time soon.

Industry emissions requirements and technology are changing “too fast”, in the owner’s words, and he is keeping a close eye on new solutions.

Mr Prokopiou was among the first owners to forcibly advocate slow-steaming and smaller ship engines. He has also been outspoken against the use of exhaust gas-cleaning systems. 

Thanks to its penchant for the spot market, tanker arm Dynagas Tankers was among the prime beneficiaries of the spike in tanker earnings in autumn 2019, fixing very large crude carrier and suezmax tonnage at soaring rates.

Dynacom has a fleet of about 60 tankers and is one of the world’s biggest suezmax owners, with 29 vessels in this segment.

The owner also has a significant presence in the dry bulk market through Sea Traders, which operates a fleet of about 40 units, mainly in the panamax and supramax sectors.

Mr Prokopiou is known to many in the industry for his impeccable hospitality and his good sea-legs on board what is becoming a small fleet of yachts.

The latest, which has been christened Dream , emerged in 2018 after a decade-long conversion in Greece of a small Turkish cruise vessel.

The resulting 106.5 m-long, six-deck vessel is one of the world’s largest mega-yachts and combines latest technology with classical nautical styling.

The owner was intimately involved with the project on a daily basis, typifying the personal approach he has also brought to his shipping activities.

A recent comment made of the emissions challenge facing the industry could well be taken as his mantra.

“I want real answers and not just wishful thinking. Desirable is very important. Doable is more important,” he said.

Although the founder himself is as active as ever, the future of his group looks to be in good hands, with Mr Prokopiou’s four daughters all increasingly involved with the business.

Mr Prokopiou also appeared in the Top 100 in 2012 ,  2013 ,  2014 ,  2015 ,  2016 ,  2017  and 2018 .

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MARITIME CYPRUS 2023 And the winner of the Cyprus Shipping Award is … George Prokopiou

An acclaimed shipping personality that has contributed the most in the growth of the Cyprus Shipping Registry was honored with Cyprus Shipping Award in the opening reception of Maritime Cyprus Conference at Limassol. The award was granted to George Prokopiou founder and managing director of Dynacom Tankers & Dynagas and was delivered by Nikos Christodoulides, president of Cyprus Republic who said that the shipping industry is very important for Cyprus that is a fully pledged and dynamic shipping center. Cyprus provides the appropriate framework for a sustainable growth  Knowledge journey continues  In his speech George Prokopiou dedicated this award to Glyfada the place the he was born and grown up. George Prokopiou has followed an exciting career of 52 years and thanked his wife Alexandra and daughters Elisa Ioanna Marina Elena. The deputy minister of shipping Marina Chatzimanolis in her introductory remarks said that the Cyprus Shipping Award is granted to leading personalities of Shipping and pointed out that this year Cyprus celebrates 60 years of Cyprus Shipping register since it was launched in Famagusta currently occupied by Turks. It must be noted that George Prokopiou is an innovative shipowner who has crossed the northern sea route and lately contributed to the fleet of Cyprus Register five state of the art LNG carriers. George Prokopiou is the first shipowner from Greece that receives the Cyprus Shipping Award since it was first launched in 2004.

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Greek shipping magnates remain buoyant as economic crisis deepens

International setup means those at top of Greece’s most prominent industry are unaffected by current financial chaos at home

First came a high-powered motorbike ridden at speed by a figure who looked as if he might belong to the Athens chapter of the Hell’s Angels. Then the first of two black limousines with darkened windows – this one a BMW with personalised number plates. Finally, an ordinary saloon.

The cavalcade came to a halt on the quayside by the stern of a 49-metre superyacht moored in one of the most exclusive marinas in the Greek capital. As the motorcyclist scanned the immediate vicinity, two burly figures leapt from the front of the BMW and opened the rear doors.

A man with white hair and beard emerged from one side; a woman with long, silver hair from the other. Both made their way to the gangplank, where the man exchanged a few words with the captain before they stepped aboard. A member of the crew followed, laden with shopping bags.

It was shortly before 3pm. Another weekend had begun for one of Greece’s richest couples.

At the start of the crisis, said Angelos Kopitsas, the general manager of the marina, the owners of Greece’s superyachts fled to ports in more stable countries, including Turkey. “But in the end they found it was much more convenient to stay here. It is not so easy to keep these boats in other marinas with, for example, Greek crews who want to come home.”

Greece may have proportionately fewer billionaires than other countries : Forbes currently lists only three while Germany has 101 . But, for at least two reasons, the Greek superrich are exceptionally prone to controversy.

One reason is that, in a society infused with patronage and cronyism, the power of their wealth gives them influence in other, politically sensitive areas, notably the media. The second is that Greek riches are extraordinarily mobile and thus largely tax-exempt.

Most of the country’s great fortunes derive in whole or in part from shipping. Top of most lists come the descendants of Stavros Niarchos (although his eldest son, Philip, is today primarily regarded as an art collector).

Forbes makes Spiros Latsis, the son of the tanker magnate, John Latsis, Greece’s richest individual. But while the family still owns a relatively modest fleet, most of its wealth is invested elsewhere.

According to Bloomberg , today’s leading Greek shipping magnates are John Angelicoussis, George Prokopiou, Peter Livanos and George Economou. Between them, they own almost 400 vessels.

Shipping is a source of pride and jobs for Greeks. It is the one area in which they unquestionably lead the world: their country’s merchant fleet is the biggest on Earth. Directly and indirectly, it is reckoned to give work to almost 200,000 people.

But the shipping business also provokes resentment. Greece’s 1967 constitution stipulates that the industry should pay no tax on the international earnings it brings into the country. And it has little to fear from either the debt crisis or an exit from the euro.

“It’s not really affecting us because we’re not Greek companies: we’re based abroad,” said a tanker owner who requested anonymity in view of the sensitivity of the situation. “The law allows us to have a ship registered in Liberia or Panama and an office in Greece. If everything collapses, we can leave the next day and establish in Cyprus or wherever.

“Our business is done in US dollars and shipping companies don’t just have one account in one country,” he said. So, not even the imposition of capital controls on Monday had any impact on Greece’s ship owners.

Their semi-detached status has come under increasing scrutiny as the country’s economic plight has worsened. Ship owners have for some years been paying a tonnage tax and, in 2013, they agreed to double it over the three years from 2014 as an extraordinary voluntary contribution, given the country’s financial difficulties.

But, although Syriza came to power in January pledging to increase the financial burden on the shipping industry, it has not followed through. In fact, it was the troika of Greek creditors, not the Greek government, which demanded a rise in the tonnage tax in the negotiations that fell apart last week.

While the commercial shipping business may not have suffered, another maritime industry is unquestionably feeling the pinch. On the other side of the Zea marina, standing at the stern of one of his company’s yachts, was Antonis Stelliatos , the president of the Hellenic Professional Yacht Owners’ Association.

At its peak, yacht chartering, and all that goes with it, contributed an estimated 3.8% to Greece’s GDP. But in recent years it has faced competition from other countries, including Turkey. And now it faces a new challenge.

“We have VIP tourism. But it will not come easily to Greece now with this uncertainty,” said Stelliatos, shrugging.

“We are suffering. But as Greeks, we know what pain means and we will put the country back on track one way or another.”

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Youth summit dedicated to environmental education and innovation to take place in greece.

More than 100 young people from Greece and all over the world who deal with the blue economy, the environment, and innovation, will have the opportunity to participate in the 7th “Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit”, which will take place at the Lighthouse of Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC), on Monday, April 15, 2024.

It will be preceded on Sunday (14/4) by a beach cleaning campaign by the young delegates. It is noted that the above initiatives are carried out in the frame of the 9th “Our Ocean Conference” (OOC), hosted by Greece (16-17/4), also at the SNFCC.

The 7th “OOC- Youth Leadership Summit” will be inaugurated by Mr Theodoros Skylakakis, Minister of Environment and Energy of Greece, Dr Dionysia - Theodora Avgerinopoulou, Chairperson of the Environment Protection Committee of the Hellenic Parliament and Coordinator of the Our Ocean Conference, Ms. Jennifer R. Littlejohn, Acting Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, US State Department, Mrs Semiramis Paliou, Chairperson of HELMEPA and INTERMEPA, Mr George Procopiou, Chairman of the Yacht Club of Greece and Mr Brandon Levy, Chief Program Officer of Sustainable Ocean Alliance.

The “OOC - Youth Leadership Summit” enables young people to creatively contribute to the public debate on ocean protection, at a global level. Moreover, distinguished personalities from academia, the private sector, politics, and civil society will take part in their discussions to support their initiatives.

Responding to the need for educational and employment opportunities towards the transition to a smart, sustainable, and inclusive blue economy, the 7th Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit highlights the need for interdisciplinary and modern educational programs, as well as the importance of upskilling and reskilling. During the Summit a pitch of innovative proposals that tackle major ocean issues will take place.

The Summit is supported by the International Organization Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA), HELMEPA (Blue Horizons partnership with the Yacht Club of Greece), Mr. George Prokopiou, Chairman of the Yacht Club of Greece and “The Sasakawa Peace Foundation”, curated by OOC-9 Coordinator, Dr. Dionysia - Theodora Avgerinopoulou. The Greek Voluntary Youth Group of the 7th YLS contributed significantly to the implementation of the program.

You can find the agenda of the “Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit” here .

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Procopiou daughters get fillip as dad receives shipping award

Greek tycoon’s offspring to play more important role in running sprawling group, their father George reveals

George Procopiou’s four daughters are assuming an increasing, possibly even dominant, role in running his fleet of more than 120 ships.

The Greek tycoon, who is turning 74 this year, said on Thursday he will continue to be actively engaged in shipping - a pastime he has long described as a hobby rather than work.

At the same time, however, Procopiou suggested he might be taking a back seat to let his children, who between them have a controlling stake in the group, shape its future.

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Mr. George J. Procopiou

Chairman / founder, dynacom tankers management ltd.

Mr. George Procopiou has managed throughout the years a shipping fleet in excess of 500 vessels since entering the shipping business in 1974 and is among others, the founder of Dynacom Tankers Management, Sea Traders and Dynagas Ltd. Since 2002, he has built more than 100 vessels at shipyards in China, South Korea and Japan. Mr. Procopiou holds a degree in civil engineering from the National Technical University of Athens. Mr. Procopiou has also served as Chairman of the North of England P&I Association. He is Chairman of the Greek committee of Bureau Veritas, as well as member of the Greek committees of Det Norske Veritas, Germanischer Lloyd, Lloyd’s Register and ABS. In 2005 Dynacom was awarded Tanker Company of the Year award by Lloyd’s List. In 2012 Dynagas made history, when the company’s LNG carrier OB RIVER became the world first LNG Carrier to transit and carry a cargo through the Northern Sea Route. In 2015 Dynagas received Statoil’s “Working Safely With Suppliers” operator award for safety performance above industry standards. In June 2017 Mr. Procopiou was presented with “Seatrade’s Lifetime Achievement Award”.