Restored century-old warship returns to Athens to serve as floating museum

After three months of extensive maintenance and conservation work, a 107-year-old battleship returned on Wednesday to its berth in Athens, where it serves as a floating museum.

A naval band played, surrounding vessels sounded their horns and a naval helicopter flew above as the Georgios Averof, a relic from the era of dreadnoughts, was nudged into its mooring spot.

Three tugs towed the 10,000-tonne former Greek navy flagship from a shipyard in Skaramangas, where the repairs were carried out with private funding, through the straits of Salamis to Trocadero in Athens.

Named after the Greek businessman who partly financed the huge cost of the ship’s purchase, the armoured cruiser was built in an Italian shipyard in 1910 and was at the time the most feared warship in the Aegean Sea.

It served in the Greek navy during the Balkan wars, playing a leading role in victorious encounters with the Ottoman Turkish navy, helping free a string of Greek islands in the northeastern Aegean and securing Greek naval dominance in the archipelago.