Greece Sends Salvage Vessel to Red Sea to Protect Shipping
Greece said it would dispatch a salvage vessel to the Red Sea after renewed Houthi attacks targeted commercial ships, a move meant to assist Greek owned vessels and seafarers operating in the area. The deployment underscores heightened maritime risk that is already driving insurance costs and altering global shipping routes, with broader implications for trade and economic stability.
Greece announced on November 29, 2025 that it would send a salvage vessel to the Red Sea to assist Greek owned ships and seafarers following a series of attacks by Houthi forces earlier in 2025, Reuters reported. The decision came after multiple incidents involving Liberia flagged, Greek operated vessels, and follows a pattern of hybrid attacks that has increasingly endangered merchant shipping through one of the world most important chokepoints.
The Red Sea and the adjacent Bab el Mandeb strait sit on the shortest route between Europe and Asia via the Suez Canal, a corridor that handles roughly 12 percent of global seaborne trade. Disruption in that corridor has cascading effects on voyage times, fuel consumption and scheduling for container, bulk and tanker operators. Shipping companies have already adjusted operations, rerouting vessels around southern Africa and applying additional security measures, steps that raise costs and slow transit times.
Greek shipping interests are particularly exposed. Greece remains one of the leading shipowning nations by tonnage and operates a large share of the world merchant fleet. Protecting Greek owned vessels is both a commercial imperative and a matter of national interest, given the sector significance for employment, tax revenue and foreign earnings for Greece. The salvage vessel deployment is a pragmatic response aimed at rapid assistance to damaged or disabled vessels and to reassure Greek shipowners and crews operating under increased threat.
Insurers and brokers have been closely monitoring the escalation. The environment of repeated Houthi attacks has prompted underwriters to increase war risk surcharges for voyages through the Red Sea and to require enhanced protective measures. Those higher insurance costs are typically passed through the supply chain through surcharges, contributing to higher freight rates and potentially higher prices for imported goods. Shipowners face choices between paying higher premiums, accepting increased security expenditures, or rerouting vessels which adds time and fuel costs.
The broader security picture remains fluid. The Houthi campaign has been characterized by the use of missiles, drones and small craft in a hybrid mode that blurs the line between naval action and asymmetric terrorism. That complexity complicates international responses, since protecting commercial traffic requires coordination among naval forces, shipowners, insurers and regional states. Past episodes of concentrated naval deployments and international convoys have succeeded at reducing immediate risk, but they are resource intensive and temporary.
For Greece the salvage vessel is a targeted, cost effective measure aimed at mitigating the commercial and human costs of attacks. In the longer term the situation raises policy questions about the adequacy of existing maritime security frameworks, the role of multinational naval cooperation, and how shipping lines and insurers should price and manage persistent threats to major trade arteries. As the pattern of attacks continues into late 2025, market participants will be watching for shifts in routing, underwriter behavior and any broader international security response that could stabilize the corridor and the global trade flows that depend on it.
