Today marks 56 years since the Heraklion shipwreck that claimed the lives of more than 200 passengers
Today marks 56 years since shipwreck of “Heraklion” in Farkonera. The ship, which had departed from Chania bound for Piraeus, broadcast an SOS at 02:06 on 8 December 1966 and shortly afterwards sank in the Aegean Sea, where more than 200 passengers perished.
At the shipwreck monument, in Chania, a memorial service was held for the victims in the morning.
Among those who attended the memorial service was Stavros Lagonikakis, one of only 47 survivors of the shipwreck.
“Everything was intense. As long as you are in the sea, you see everything clearly. Every minute that passes seems like an hour,” the man who fought the waves for more than 10 hours told Creta24.
The moment he remembers most vividly is that of his rescue. “They threw us a ladder from the Syros ferry, which had small squares. I had to grab hold of this ladder, this net and climb, They also threw a coil (life jacket) at me from 10 meters, to grab hold to be pulled. After so many hours in the sea, it’s so exhausting…
Where can you find the strength to hold on and be pulled? I caught the coil, they pulled me a meter, one and a half. I slipped and then I saw the great force…”, he said, describing the dramatic moments when his salvation was so close but at the same time so far.
Mr. Lagonikakis remembers both the incidents and what he felt during all those hours he was fighting for his life. The moments when the sea “smelled” death and everyone thought that they would drown at any moment. The most tragic moment of his long battle at sea was when a woman drowned next to him.
He described: “I was swimming alone. On a rise made by the waves, because they were too high, I saw above the wave something floating.
I was shouting: “Is there anyone?” I wasn’t getting an answer. I tried, I swam to reach the spot and when I arrived I saw a man in a caisson and next to him a girl over 40 years old. I told him I was shouting and they said they didn’t hear anything. The man, Ilias Koukunakis, did not know how to bathe. He was on deck when the ship heeled him and he fell into the sea almost with the girl and the caisson. The girl from the caisson was caught first, they told me, and he from the girl.
She pulled him out and put him in the box. He had life jackets on, but most of them were washed away by the waves after he had opened them. We talked for hours. We were at sea for more than 10 hours. The girl had been frozen since morning, she didn’t even understand if she was holding the box. With one hand I hugged her and with the other I held the caisson so that the wave would not take her. When I got tired, I would change hands and hold her hands on the caisson.”
Mr. Lagonikakis shocks by describing what followed, which even 56 years later he remembers in every detail. “It must have been about one, half past one, when the wave first took her 10 points away from me. I managed to catch her and brought her back to the caisson. After a while, frozen and exhausted, maybe so am I, she was taken by the wave again. She was drowning, I was trying to take the caisson and go to her because if it’s your brother and child at that moment, you can’t let go of the caisson… I couldn’t, at 30-35 points from me I saw her lose consciousness and drown. I said, in a little while I will also drown,” he said.
A big shock for him was the moment when he believed that they had given up on them, but also the moment that he did not manage to save himself and end the long-hour torture at sea earlier. “We could see the ships at a great distance from us. We thought they were doing their searching and had left us to drown, while they were at the point where most of the castaways were gathered. A dakota passed by, threw a flare, didn’t see us. He crossed again and threw another flare. These at intervals of half an hour, maybe even 10 minutes. The third time he passed, he threw a big yellow sheet at us, we didn’t understand what it was, but when it fell into the sea it became a big boat. But they had miscalculated the wind, it was 8-9 Beaufort and it pushed her to the opposite side of us.”
Stavros Lagonikakis managed to escape together with Ilias Koukounakis. “For me this day is a holiday. In ’66 I was reborn. I struggled for so many hours, I was saved, I was reborn”, said Mr. Lagonikakis to Creta24 who is grateful for his luck, but never forgets what happened and the 100s of people for whom “Heraklion” became a wet grave.
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