A man spent his entire life savings to repurpose a retired cruise ship chip, but found that refurbishing the 2,500-ton yacht was no simple task.
Planning on turning the ship built in 1955 into a museum, Chris Willson purchased the boat on Craigslist in 2008.
While he did make renovations to make the boat habitable (he called it home for more than 10 years), his efforts to make the ship seaworthy were costly, he told CNN on Wednesday.
“We loved the time we spent on that boat,” Willson, a Utah native, told the station about the past decade and a half working on the 293-foot vessel with his girlfriend, Jin Li.
“(Selling) was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he said of the decision to sell the boat, after investing more than $1 million in its refurbishment.
Chris Willson, seen here with his partner Jin Li, bought the massive boat on Craigslist in 2008.
The Aurora began to sink a few months after Willson was finally forced to sell it.
“It’s something that haunts me and keeps me up at night. It doesn’t make me happy.”
The 85-cabin cruise ship, originally named Wappen von Hamburg, the first major passenger ship built by Germany after World War II, It ended up moored in the California Delta with a new owner who eventually put the boat up for sale.
Impressed by the ship’s layout and its “magnificent” staircases, Willson took a trip to Northern California.
“I posed as a potential buyer, even though I actually had no interest in buying a boat,” he told CNN in 2022. “It was a little bit out of my comfort level, to say the least.”
Once he climbed aboard, he saw firsthand how much the ship had been neglected over the years, a far cry from the photos he saw of its heyday.
Willson made renovations to make it habitable and called the boat home for more than 10 years.
The 85-cabin cruise ship, originally named Wappen von Hamburg (the first major passenger ship built by Germany after World War II), ended up moored in the California Delta before Willson bought it.
Yet hidden beneath the trash and mold was still “one of the most spectacular designs of almost any boat I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“It’s almost like finding an old ’60s Corvette in your garage,” he said of the boat’s potential.
“You can see the quality is there, but it’s so sloppy that you almost feel bad about it.”
“The next thing I knew, I owned a boat,” Willson said, adding that he was able to “work out a very good deal with the boat owner.”
The ship’s renovation, which took place in Rio Vista, included hundreds of bags of household trash and old mattresses, he recalled.
When he found the boat in 2008, he saw firsthand how much it had been neglected over the years.
But when he looked closer, he saw potential in the five-story ship.
“The scale was huge,” he said of the initiative that required volunteers.
“It’s almost the same as rebuilding 15 houses by yourself.”
After a few months, Willson decided to move aboard with his partner from their home in Santa Cruz to focus on the work at hand.
“When I first moved here, a lot of my friends and family couldn’t believe it,” she told CNN. “It was a pretty big change in my lifestyle.”
“But I see it more as an improvement, even though we are off-grid and running primarily on solar generators and grids.”
“It’s almost like finding an old Corvette from the ’60s in the garage,” Willson said. “You can see the quality is there, but it’s so run down that you almost feel bad for it.”
“The next thing I knew, I owned a boat,” Willson said, adding that he was able to “work out a really good deal with the boat owner,” whose name was not revealed.
As the two worked, Willson learned more about the ship’s past.
He discovered that not only did it serve as inspiration for the popular 1970s series “The Love Boat,” but it was also the filming location for the villains’ headquarters in the second James Bond film, “From Russia with Love.”
She served as a cruise ship for about two decades, before changing hands several times.
“Nobody knew what the history of the ship was,” he says. “And over time, we discovered a lot of its history.”
‘We transformed her from a big ship floating in the Delta and rusting away, to probably one of the most famous old cruise ships in the world.
“And I have to be proud of it.”
The ship not only served as inspiration for the popular 1970s series ‘The Love Boat’, but was also the filming location for the villains’ headquarters in the second James Bond film ‘From Russia with Love’.
Willson would invest his entire life savings into the project and christen the ship Aurora in honor of the sunrises he regularly saw on its decks.
Willson would invest his entire life savings into the project and christen the ship Aurora, in honor of the sunrises he regularly saw on its decks.
However, Willson said he regularly received “three-day notices” from the local government to leave, but the police never “carried out an eviction.”
Things went from bad to worse when a military tugboat sank alongside the Aurora in January, creating, in his words, a “pollution problem.”
“From that moment on everything changed,” he explained, revealing that “there really was no future for Aurora” in that location.
Moving it would be expensive, he said, telling CNN it would have cost $1 million to dredge it (just) out.
Pictured: Aurora’s cameo in ‘From Russia with Love’ in 1963
Willson said the local government regularly sent him “three-day notices” to leave, but the police never “carried out an eviction.”
“So we were stuck there,” he said. Then, in October 2023, he and his partner made the painful decision to sell the boat to an anonymous buyer.
Just five months later, the ship began to sink.
The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said at the time: “It has been determined that the vessel has sustained a leak and is taking on water and is currently leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta Channel.
The United States Coast Guard later Approximately 21,675 gallons of oil-contaminated water, 3,193 gallons of waste, and five 25-yard containers of debris were removed from the vessel.
Willson said he was shocked when he learned the ship had partially sunk after his decision to sell the boat.
Willson said he was shocked when he learned the ship had partially sunk.
“I didn’t see it sinking,” he said Wednesday. “We had it for 15 years and we didn’t have any problems with it.”
He added: “I maintained that boat meticulously. I checked everything several times a day. We were there the whole time… It just saddens me like nothing else.”
Despite the criticism he faced from locals, Willson said he still fondly remembers his time on the ship.
“We loved the time we had with that boat,” Willson said. “It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“It’s something that haunts me and keeps me up at night. It doesn’t make me happy.”
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