A senior member of one of Greece’s best-known shipping families, with a career spanning several decades on three continents, died on Sunday.
Spyros M Polemis, principal of London-based Seacrest Shipping, died on 21 July, according to a statement by the Andros Yacht Club, of which he was a founding member and the honorary president.
“A person easy to work with, of few words but prolific in action and intellectually curious, he never buckled under the storms of life and fought to the end,” the club said.
The yacht club of the Aegean island Polemis hailed from was far from the only organisation the veteran shipowner headed.
Born in December 1937, Polemis was an influential player in all three maritime centres where Greek shipping thrived — New York, London and Athens — over the course of his life.
“That man was an honourable stalwart of shipping and deserves every respect,” said a shipping player who knew him.
His standing was reflected in the numerous top positions he held at several organisations, including the chairmanship of the International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) between 2006 and 2012.
“In a way, [former IMO secretary general] Thimio [Mitropoulos] was in charge of all the governments in the world, and I was in charge of all shipping companies in the world,” Polemis playfully reminisced at a Capital Link conference 10 years ago in London.
The ICS issued a condolence statement for its former chairman on Monday.
“Mr Polemis was a tireless advocate for shipping and the maintenance of global rules for a global industry,” secretary general Guy Platten said, extolling the late owner’s role in helping the industry navigate the global financial crisis of 2008 and the worst years of the Somali piracy crisis.
“He was also one of the original industry advocates for a ‘levy’ on shipping’s greenhouse gas emissions in response to global warming, which became a key ICS policy under his chairmanship.”
Apart from the ICS, Polemis was chairman of the International Shipping Federation, of dry cargo shipowners association Intercargo and of the UK national committee of ABS.
He was immensely proud of his family’s heritage.
In an interview with TradeWinds’ Gillian Whittaker, Polemis related how his paternal grandmother was the daughter of a prominent shipping family around the 1850s.
“My mother’s maiden name was Kriezis. This family have had quite a legacy. My great-great-great grandfather bought his first ship in 1790,” he said.
On his father’s side, his grandfather seems to have got into shipping early in the 20th century.
Andros was considered a matriarchal society because of the long absence of husbands and sons.
