Vasilis Konstantakopoulos - Shipowner
THE LEGENTARY "CAPTAIN VASILIS"
Captain Vasilis Konstantakopoulos was born on June 29th, 1935 at Diavolitsi, where he grew up. During the Civil War he moved to Athens and there he first set eyes on the sea at the age of 13. He graduated from night high school while working at the same time. On February 2nd, 1953, (when he was 18), he embarked a ship at the port of Piraeus on a six-month unpaid contract. During the twenty consecutive years of his naval career he was promoted to all degrees of naval hierarchy. In 1964 she married Carmen Kiritsis and had three sons.
In 1974, he founded Costamare Shipping Co S.A. and soon bought the first ship of the fleet, which he renamed CARMEN. In 1985, he switched to container ships. Years later, according to an article in the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List, Vasilis Konstantakopoulos was named "Greek King of Containers", as in June 2007 his company owned 51 ships.
In the mid-1980s, the Costa Navarino vision was born in order to put Messinia on the world tourist map. In 1997, Captain Vasilis founded TEMES, which took over the realization of his vision. So, in May 2000, the first site in Costa Navarino began operating, which includes hotels, a golf course and many more infrastructures. In October 2011, the second golf course started operating in the area near Pylos. In 1999, GEOHELLAS, a mining company, was founded to extract, process and dispose of inorganic industrial minerals from the company's deposits in Macedonia.
Captain Basili's intense ecological action dates back to the 1970s. He was one of the first members of the Hellenic Marine Environment Protection Association (HELMEPA) and a founding member of the children’s HELMEPA. In 2008, Costamare was the first shipping company in the world to fully comply with the new international guidelines on CO2. He was also a founding member of the Association of Greek Tourist Enterprises, the United Greek -American Congress and the Pylos Archaeological Foundation.
In 2012, in its honor, the central Kalamata International Airport was renamed to "Captain Vasilis Konstantakopoulos". Captain V. Konstantakopoulos passed away on January 25th, 2011 after a long battle with cancer.