Why Greek traditional wooden boatbuilders are facing a dying craft

Boatbuilders carrying a giant slab of wood at a boatyard in Karlovasi, Samos Island. Photos: Petros Giannakouris/AP

On the forested slopes of an island mountain, early morning mist swirling around its peak, the unmistakable form of a traditional Greek wooden boat emerges: a caique, or kaiki, the likes of which has sailed these seas for hundreds of years.

Each beam of wood, each plank, has been felled, trimmed and shaped by one man alone, hauled and nailed into place using techniques handed down through generations, from father to son, uncle to nephew. But the current generation could be the last.