Georgios Averof (Greek: Θ/Κ Γεώργιος Αβέρωφ) is a modified Pisa-class armored cruiser built in Italy for the Royal Hellenic Navy in the first decade of the 20th century.

After maintenance in late 2017, she achieved seaworthiness state once again, allowing the ship to sail (towed) accompanied by Greek frigate Kountouriotis (F-462) (Φ/Γ Κουντουριώτης) to Thessaloniki Greece where she received more than 130,000 visitors over her 53-day stay.

This had been caused by the slip of a rifling tool, but Armstrong Whitworth's chief ordnance engineer correctly judged the defect as inconsequential to the weapon's performance and safety.

Her first captain, Ioannis Damianos, took command on 16 May 1911, and the Averof immediately sailed to England for the Coronation Naval Review of King George V. While there, she would also receive the first load of ammunition for her British-built guns.

During the naval battles at Elli (3 December 1912) and Lemnos (5 January 1913) against the Ottoman Navy, she almost single-handedly secured victory and the undisputed control of the Aegean Sea for Greece.

Georgios Averof is credited with successfully closing the Aegean Sea to Ottoman transports bringing fresh troops and supplies to the front during the First Balkan War.

It is hypothesized that in the lack of such decisive control of the sea by the Greek Navy, the Ottoman Empire might have reinforced its forces on the Balkan Peninsula and therefore fared better in the war.

During the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), she supported troop landings in Eastern Thrace, bombarded the Turkish Black Sea coastline, and helped to evacuate refugees after the Greek Army's defeat.

From 1925 to 1927, the cruiser underwent a major refit in France, during which she received modern anti-aircraft armament, a new tripod-foremast and conning tower, improved fire-control equipment, and an overhaul of her engines, boilers, and furnaces.

In the early morning of 18 April 1941, after the collapse of the Greco-German front, the Averof's crew disobeyed direct orders to scuttle the ship in preventing her possible capture by the enemy.

Under the constant threat of Luftwaffe air strikes (which had sunk many Greek and British warships during the evacuation), the cruiser sailed to Souda Bay, Crete and then on to the UK naval station at Alexandria, arriving in Egypt on 23 April.

While too slow to serve with the British Fleet in the Mediterranean, and also lacking sufficient anti-aircraft armament for that theatre of operation, the old armored cruiser was considered quite appropriate for escorting Indian Ocean convoys.

In this capacity, she could offer more firepower than a contemporary heavy cruiser (albeit with less gunnery range), and twice their respective armour protection, quite sufficient to deal with the threat posed by German raiders operating in the sector.

The three weeks spent there saw her crew involved in the rescue of sailors and soldiers aboard the Cunard Line troopship MV Georgic, which was set ablaze and sunk at an adjacent berth during a Luftwaffe air raid on 6 July.

With several of her boilers deactivated, and the fuel-oil spraying mechanism for her coal furnaces now inoperable, the Averof was then capable of only 9 knots, insufficient for her planned convoy duties.

So on 20 July, the ship departed for Port Sudan, where she underwent three weeks of emergency repairs to her oil-accelerant apparatus, raising her cruising speed to the required minimum.

On 28 September she was assigned to escort an oil tanker convoy (BP.16) from Bombay to Basra in the Persian Gulf, but was detached before completing the voyage due to faulty boilers.

This was of extra concern because on 24 September, the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran had sunk the Stamatios G. Embiricos at the equator, ending three months of raider inactivity in the sector.

By the time the Averof was forced to leave her convoy, the Greek freighter was already four days overdue to Columbo, Ceylon, meaning the enemy would have had a week to sail in any direction from the Embiricos' last known position.

Again repaired to a cruising capability of 12 knots, she sailed for Port Said, Egypt, in an independent passage of the Arabian and Red Seas, and took up duties as a Suez Canal guard ship from mid-November 1942.

On 17 October 1944, once again as the flagship of the exiled Hellenic Navy, and under the command of Captain Theodoros Kountouriotis (the Admiral's son), she carried the Greek government-in-exile from Cairo to liberated Athens.

[8] In June 2010 the ship was involved in a scandal after being used as the stage for a lavish wedding party by Greek shipowner Leon Patitsas and TV persona Marietta Chrousala.

The publication of photos from the party by the Proto Thema tabloid caused major political uproar, resulting in the dismissal of her commander, Commodore Evangelos Gavalas.

In May 2017, Goulandris, together with Hydra Ecologists Club, and several retired Hellenic Navy officers, announced their intention to begin a thorough review of the mechanical parts that would need to be newly machined or refurbished, so that the ship might eventually sail the Aegean under steam power.