[by Manos Castrinakis, Class of 2007]
The island of Samos has a tradition of wooden boat building that goes back to antiquity and spans centuries of the medieval ages all the way to the 19th century. Perhaps one of the reasons for this has been the rich forest of pine, which was suitable for durable frames and planking. Furthermore, like with most Greek islands, its people have taken to the sea and prosper as both boat builders and boat owners.
The reason the museum was located there, is much simpler and due to a donation from a private foundation and the availability of a piece of land near Pythagorio, where Pythagoras came from. The island still has a number of small boat yards, where a number of local boat builders, against all odds, continue to build the popular fishing boats even if there are no customers for them, simply because they like this craft.
The museum will have a preservation role but also a research mission as well as an educational purpose where it will try to attract young people who want to learn how to build wooden boats. It still needs to gather its money for the building which has been designed but it already has a number of full size boats that have been donated to it as well as many other exhibits in storage.
I was lucky to have visited one of the boat yards on the island tucked away on the western most end of Samos, from where I am including a number of photos I took at the time. There was no one there, yet boats were all around in different stages of completion. The facilities were something less than primitive, which meant the people really loved what they were doing and hand tools played a bigger role than heavy machinery. The boats and their scantlings showed to start a lack of sophistication. But these were boat-building methods, which survived centuries and were carried down from father to son without books and theories but a continuous practice and a great instinct for seaworthiness in the tricky waters of the Aegean. The timber used was full of knots but at the thickness used did not matter. Weight is therefore a negative in performance but at the speed foreseen, strength and longevity has been more important.
The reason the museum was located there, is much simpler and due to a donation from a private foundation and the availability of a piece of land near Pythagorio, where Pythagoras came from. The island still has a number of small boat yards, where a number of local boat builders, against all odds, continue to build the popular fishing boats even if there are no customers for them, simply because they like this craft.
The museum will have a preservation role but also a research mission as well as an educational purpose where it will try to attract young people who want to learn how to build wooden boats. It still needs to gather its money for the building which has been designed but it already has a number of full size boats that have been donated to it as well as many other exhibits in storage.
Watch the slideshow with more photos from Agios Isidoros.