(CNN) — It’s not every day that you can find a cruise ship for sale on Craigslist. So Chris Willson was immediately intrigued when he came across an 89.3 meter boat listed on the classifieds website in 2008.
The “pocket” cruiser, built in Germany, was anchored in the California delta and its owner was ready to sell it.
After seeing the ad appear numerous times, Willson, who was working on virtual reality travel development, decided to investigate.
“I posed as a potential buyer, even though I really had no interest in buying a boat,” Willson tells CNN Travel.
“It was a little out of my comfort level, to say the least.”
Once he made the trip to the Inland River Delta and Estuary in Northern California and climbed aboard, Willson was shocked at how neglected the 2,496-gross-ton ship had been over the years.
However, when he began to explore further, he realized that underneath all the “junk” on board was a rather impressive five-tier ship.
closing the deal
Chris Willson and his partner Jin Li now live aboard the cruise ship he bought in 2008.
Crédito: Christopher Willson
“It has one of the most spectacular layouts of any boat I’ve ever seen,” he adds. “The stairs are magnificent.”
“It’s almost the same as finding an old Corvette from the ’60s in the garage. You can see the quality is there, but it’s so run down you almost feel bad for it.”
After researching the history of the ship, he discovered that it was built by the Blohm and Voss shipyards in 1955, and that it was the first major passenger liner built by Germany after World War II.
The more he learned about the ship, originally named Wappen von Hamburg, the more he became convinced that it was a project he was willing to undertake.
After carefully considering the magnitude of what owning a mini-cruise would entail, Willson drew up a restoration plan and decided to take the plunge.
Although he is reluctant to talk about the amount he paid, he says he was able to “get a really good deal with the owner of the boat.”
“Next thing I know, I own a boat,” adds Willson.
But once he signed on the dotted line, he had to think about where he was going to put it. Fortunately, Willson secured a lease in the California river town of Rio Vista and arranged to have the boat towed there.
An exciting project
Willson has been working on the ship, which is docked at a marina in Little Potato Slough, California, with the help of volunteers. Credits: Christopher Wilson
It was then that the restoration process began. The first step was to get rid of all the garbage that was on board. Willson says there were hundreds of bags of household trash along with old mattresses and blankets, and looking for volunteers to help him.
“I figured it was going to be a long project,” says Willson. “The scale of it was huge. It’s about the same as redoing 15 houses by yourself.”
After spending a few months traveling about three hours from his home in Santa Cruz to work on the ship, Willson decided to move on board with his partner Jin Li so he could fully focus on the project, as well as keeping it safe.
“When I first came on board, a lot of my friends and family didn’t believe it,” he admits. “It was a pretty big lifestyle change. But I see it more as an upgrade, even though we are off the grid and mostly run on generators and solar grids.”
As he began to dig deeper into the ship’s history, Willson says he learned that, in addition to being the inspiration for the popular TV series “The Love Boat,” it was the filming location for the headquarters of the criminal organization Specter. in the 1963 James Bond film “From Russia with Love.”
The ship served as a cruise ship for about two decades, he says, going through several different owners and names before being anchored in Vancouver.
After a few missteps and more owner and name changes, she was towed to Alameda, California in 2005. Plans were put in place to convert her into a luxury yacht, but ultimately fell through.
The ship remained in Alameda for several years until it was purchased by a businessman and transferred to the California Delta. The ship was believed to be on the verge of being scrapped when Willson saw it listed on Craigslist in 2008.
historic ship
“The more I learned about the history, I thought it might be an attraction on land, like the Queen Mary [un transatlántico retirado anclado en Long Beach que ahora es una popular atracción turística]”, he explains. “I would like to turn it into a museum and allow people to take guided tours [al barco]”.
He estimates that it would cost about $3 million to transform the ship into a seaside attraction.
Willson, who had no previous ship experience, has spent some 14 years renovating the vessel, with the help of volunteers.
“I’m pretty handy,” he says, explaining that he has rebuilt many cars in the past and previously worked as an electromechanical engineer in disaster recovery.
He renamed the vessel the Aurora after spending his first night on board.
“I woke up to one of the most beautiful sunrises I had ever seen,” explains Willson. “There was an Aurora-like effect with the clouds and the water. I remember thinking at the time that ‘Aurora’ was an appropriate name.”
With the help of volunteers, along with Li, who Willson says has played a critical role in helping preserve the Aurora, he has completed renovations to some hallways, as well as a lounge and several cabins.
“Our biggest accomplishment has been removing the old wood from the decks and spending an enormous amount of time welding new steel plates to completely seal the decks,” he says.
“The biggest challenge is not so much the work on the boat, but dealing with the politics behind it. Does the county or the city want their boat to be there?”
After a few years at Rio Vista, Willson was offered a berth at Pier 38 in San Francisco and moved the Aurora there. However, things did not work out as he hoped and Willson was later asked to find a new home for the ship.
He moved it back to the California Delta in 2012, mooring the Aurora at a marina in Little Potato Slough, located about 15 miles from the city of Stockton in California’s Central Valley.
Since then, the Aurora has been parked “in cool, shallow water” at this location and it looks like it will stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Although the ship is unseaworthy, Willson stresses that it has a “solid bottom” and, after consulting with various marine engineers, is confident that “with proper maintenance and supervision” it can safely remain where it is.
“As long as we don’t take it out where there’s a lot of electrolysis and stuff like that,” he adds. “It’s safe for now, but we have plans to move it closer to the bay when its restoration is more advanced.”
He hopes to raise enough funds to get the boat out of the water and redo the basses at some point.
fundraising
Willson has financed most of the work himself, but hopes to raise enough funds to transform it into a museum. Credits: Christopher Wilson
“As far as the actual work on the ship goes, I’ve learned a lot,” he says. “There’s nothing he can’t fix. But it all takes a lot of money to get it done.”
Outside of a few small donations, Willson has financed most of the renovation work himself so far.
He has been able to raise funds for the works by buying items at state markets and auctions and reselling them on online auction sites like eBay, as well as working as a consultant on other historic boat projects.
But while this income has kept the project going, it’s not enough to fund the full restoration, and Willson is determined to finish what he started.
After learning about the “Ship Happens” YouTube channel, which details the efforts of a British couple renovating an 80-year-old World War II ship they bought on eBay, Willson was inspired to bring his own story to the platform with the aim of arousing interest, as well as financing.
In February he launched Aurora Restoration Projectand the channel has amassed nearly 70,000 subscribers.
“Since the whole YouTube thing came up, we’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people who have volunteered,” he says.
Willson is hopeful his success will help speed things up, and he says he’s already seeing results.
“Things are speeding up,” he says.
However, video production alongside a ship renovation is proving tricky, and he’s still “finding the balance” when it comes to juggling the two.
“Once I start to feel more comfortable with it, we hope to start having groups of volunteers come in several days a week,” adds Willson.
End in sight?
A grand staircase aboard the ship, which Willson has renamed the Aurora. Credit: Christopher Willson
Although there is still a long way to go, Willson is inching closer to his goal of transforming the Aurora into a museum.
While he has also thought about transforming the ship into a bed-and-breakfast hotel, or even a wedding venue, he believes a museum is the most “realistic” option.
“This is something we try to give back to people,” he says. “We don’t want to fix it and make our own private yacht.”
And there’s certainly plenty to see aboard the Aurora. The ship has 85 cabins, plus an upper saloon with its own private foredeck deck, a swimming pool, a large galley, and a theater.
“We have restored a small number of cabins on board, but we have a lot more to do and we will soon offer the opportunity for the public to sponsor a cabin restoration,” he says.
Willson and his team of volunteers are currently working on the rear of the Aurora and aim to fully restore the galley and dining room in the remainder of 2022.
In recent years, Willson has received furnishings from other historic ships for use aboard the Aurora.
“We had a big donation from the Island Princess, one of the ships that ‘The Love Boat’ was filmed on, which was recently scrapped,” he says.
For now, Willson enjoys working and living aboard the ship, and looks forward to the day when it can be opened to the public.
“There is nothing more spectacular than being able to work and live in something so unique,” he adds.
But do you have any hope that this spectacular ship will one day set sail again? “If the money comes through, you can sail again,” she says. “If not, it can be a great museum.”