With the 60 years of the Aegean Rally (1963-2023) I complete 15 years of active participation…

By Vaggelis Rassias

I started as a sailor-reporter in 1985, a significant year for the rally, (we were “attacked” by the Turks, the Turkish fleet suddenly went out for an exercise!) and as if that wasn’t enough, on the last leg of the Samos-Pythagorean-Vouliagmeni trip, the weather reached 10 Beaufort and didn’t drop. The bad luck of the Turks, you see…

The stories are many… feasts, jokes, photo shoots, seamanship, drinks, cigarettes, beautiful girls and above all travel, sport and teamwork. I had the opportunity to meet remarkable Greek sailors, such as the president of the P.O.I.A. Th, Yannis Maragoudakis, Tasos Bountouris, Ilias Hadjipavlis, Ilias Vlachakis, Yannis Kostopoulos (Alpha Bank), Petros Goulandris, Stelios Bonas, Pericles Livas, Theo Angelopoulos (Chalyvourgiki), Takis Strouzas, Paris Vangelatos, George Ertsos, Dimitris Deligiannis, Th. Georgiadis, G. Vassilopoulos, Daniel Saltadima, Loretta Konstantinidis and so many others and others that I forget with the passage of time…

Of course, time is not engraved on the sea, but on the faces of the sailors… The Aegean Rally offered me excellent photographic experiences, I discovered the islands of the Aegean, its people and this fateful sea that offered so many joys and sorrows to this country. The homeland that my beloved navy has always been present in all my travels on all my sea voyages.