I’ve got regrets man, I mean, who doesn’t? I’ll tell you who: the man who bought a derelict cruise ship, poured his money and energy into saving it, only for the ship to end up on the business end of a steel-eating crane. That is a downright impressive amount of folly to embrace. Chris Willson, who purchased the 294-foot Aurora on Craigslist of all places, says he has no regrets even after his beloved ship became a minor ecological disaster in a city that could ill afford the clean up.
But the Aurora wasn’t just a dream project of one very optimistic man. Thousands of people volunteered their time to save this ship and it’s historic roots. It was the first significant ocean liner built by Germany following World War II. It appeared in a Bond film and served as a cruise ship for two decades before Willson took delivery. Now its been ground into nothing at a pier outside of Lind Marina, on Mare Island, California. Willson told CNN that his regrets lie, not with buying the massive money pit, but not seeing the rehabilitation of the Aurora through to the end.
Ran when docked
I know what you’re thinking and no, this isn’t the story of some weirdo Libertarian trying to create a lawless sea-based society. It seems Willson just really likes old ships. He bemoaned the state of historic ships in the U.S. to CNN and called the Aurora “one of the most historic on the planet,” which might a bit of an overstatement due to his affection for the vessel.
Still, the Aurora certainly has a fascinating providence. Built in 1955 and dubbed the Wappen von Hamburg, the ship served as the headquarters for the nefarious Spectre organization in the 1963 James Bond film “From Russia With Love.” For two decades the Aurora operated as a pocket-sized cruise ship and changed hands several times until Willson spotted it on Craigslist in 2008. Willson negotiated a “really good deal” with the seller, and from there it was just a question of finding a place to put the nearly 300-foot-long derelict ship, a challenge that would prove its undoing.
He eventually parked the boat in a shallow, fresh water berth about 14 miles outside of Stockton, California. This worked for a few years, even after the Marina closed, but locals demanded the Aurora’s removal after other ships left at the site started sinking. Things got more complicated from there, according to CNN:
“The ship was trapped in that channel,” he says. “There was no getting it out without dredging and that’s something that the city would have to do… So there was absolutely no getting out of that situation.”
As time went on and the pressure mounted, Willson felt more and more out of his depth and the situation began to take an emotional toll on him.
Feeling dejected, he says he ultimately chose to sell the Aurora to an interested buyer who seemed just as passionate about saving the ship as he was.”I didn’t see myself being able to fight that battle anymore,” he says, adding that selling the ship “destroyed” him.”It became far too in depth for me. And I decided for mental health reasons, just to kind of stay away… To move on and find another project and do something else with my life.”
Gone, but not forgotten
Willson sold the Aurora, believing the new owner had the wherewithal to keep her afloat. But seven months later, the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office announced the ship was slowly sinking and “leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta Waterway.” The spill required the removal of an “estimated 21,675 gallons of oily water, 3,193 gallons of hazardous waste, and five 25-yard bins of debris,” according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Office of Spill Prevention and Response.
This is exactly the outcome the folks who put pressure on Willson originally were worried about. By December of last year, the U.S. Coast Guard of Northern California was over the polluting ship with seemingly absent owners. The ship was transported to Mare Island for disassembly. It seems the city of Stockton, which already has its own share of problems, is on the hook for the disassembly and clean up as no one can get a hold of who owned the ship when it fell into such a state of disrepair. One cruise ship historian estimated the clean up would likely cost between $10 and $20 million, CNN reports. On April 9, the Aurora was chewed apart by cranes designed to scrap ships. As for Willson, he regrets parting with the Aurora now, but doesn’t regret the time he sank into the vessel.
“I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything,” Willson told CNN. “There were so many almosts with that ship. We almost had the right people involved in order to save that ship for many, many more generations. But things fall through and we just kept waiting for the next one to happen. So I think it was worth it to take the chance.”
I guess there just isn’t enough room in this world for the love of a man for his 294-foot vessel.
