Who we are

Masters' Shipping Co. (and its affiliate Masters' Cruise and Ferry Shipbroking sa) was established back in 1965 as a purely Passenger Ships Broking boutique shop exclusively dedicated to S+P, Chartering as well as Evaluations for all types of Passenger Ships.

THE FIRST OF ITS KIND IN THE WHOLE WORLD.

Since its inception and over the years Masters has brokered well above 1000 transactions involving Passenger Ships (Cruise ships, Ropax Ferries and High Speed Crafts - Second hand, Newbuildings and for Recycling).

The Company has also issued thousands of Valuation Certificates for Passenger Ships by appointment of tens of Shipping Banks, Law Offices, Arbitrators, Financiers, Owners, Operators, Charterers, etc., being the first (and only at the time) Greek Passenger-Ships-only Specialist Broker appearing on Hellenic Chamber of Shipping's short-list of Approved Valuators.

Such has been the dedication of Masters’ Shipping to the world of Passenger Ship-broking services, that the Company's brand name soon became synonymous with Specialist Passenger Ships Broking.

We are honoured and pride ourselves on having been very close to companies boasting as International Market Leaders and Pioneers like EPIROTIKI LINES, LOUIS CRUISES, PANAGOPOULOS family's ATTICA and
BLUE STAR FERRIES, the Cretan (then) star-performers MINOAN and ANEK, to client-friends like HELLENIC SEAWAYS, KYMA SHIP MANAGEMENT OF MIAMI, the vast majority of the operators of the Greek Coastal Ferry market and - since its inception - SEAJETS Highspeed Ferries company to and for whom we have already brokered well above 40 deals.

Breakthrough Deals

Our long list of 'Breakthrough Deals' includes some TEN CRUISE SHIPS enbloc chartered out to the Italian Government as floating hotels to host the G8 Summit, some SEVEN CRUISE SHIPS enbloc also chartered out as floating hotels to host the Nato Summit in Naples, the charter of Greek Cruise Ships to the French TV during the Athens Olympics, some EIGHT CRUISE SHIPS chartered out to the Portuguese Government as floating hotels to host the Lisbon 1998 Exhibition, TENS of Cruise Ships sales to and for EPIROTIKI LINES, LOUIS CRUISE LINES, ROYAL OLYMPIC CRUISE LINES (for which we sold three Cruise Ships enbloc etc), the evacuation of Libya when the civil world started in that country by chartering ANEK LINE'S ships to the Embassy of Brazil as well as to the Government of Vietnam, etc. Last but not least, the FIVE CRUISE SHIPS we sold to our exclusive client and very close friend, the late George P. Potamianos’ Arcalia Shipping, Lisbon.

It is worth mentioning that some of the Ships appearing on our List of Fame we have sold even upto four times over and again to different buyers.

Our most recent, yet unique, 'Blockbuster' Sales Deals are the enbloc sale of four Carnival Corporation's Cruise ships, namely, the Oceana, the Veendam, the Maasdam, and the Pacific Aria to buyers controlled by Seajets. These very deals have already triggered a disruption to the way the international Sale and Purchase market for second hand Cruise Ships used to work.

Short Bio

The company's President and CEO, Capt. Dennis G. Vernardakis, is a Merchant Marine Captain who spent some of his sea-service years on a number of Passenger Ships. He is a Nautical School Graduate and has also taken lots of educational courses in London, Oxford and Athens both before and after his sea service career. He joined Masters' Shipping in mid 70’s as Broker and he eventually took over the reins of the company some 20 years later.

Very early on in his career as a Passenger Ship Specialist Broker (both s+p and chartering), Capt. Dennis became very actively and deeply involved in the very specialist area of Passenger Ships Valuations on which subject he has Lectured at various Universities and International Conferences and has written tens of articles in internationally prestigious papers including the Lloyd's List, TradeWinds as well as other international and domestic specialist publications.

Research and Development

Fairly recently (since last year), Capt. Dennis' son, George Vernardakis, a Master Degree Graduate in Applied Maths (specialised in Probabilistic Theory and Statistics with major in Stochastic Processes and Optimisation Algorithms based on AI, etc.) from NTUA, member of the AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY, member of SIAM (society for industrial and applied mathematics, USA) and holder of a Valuators' Certificate from Lloyd's Academy of London, joined the family-controlled company as head of a new R+D (Research and Development) department established with a focus on developing Special Algorithms aiming at providing hard science backing to the Valuations Certificates issued by Masters Shipping co's affiliate Masters' Cruise and Ferry Shipbroking s.a.