A yacht with a unique past has found its way to Šibenik.
As Morski writes on the 2nd of September, 2018, one of the world’s most famous vessels, Christina O, has sailed to the beautiful Dalmatian city of Šibenik’s harbour. This beautiful ship boasts an incredibly interesting and somewhat star-studden history, hitting the very peak of its fame when it was in the possession of Greek shipowner Aristotel Onassis. Since then, the yacht has bore the name of his daughter, Christina.
The stunning 99-metre-long yacht was built during the Second World War (1943) and was used in its very beginnings as a Canadian frigate.
Since 1954, the year in which Greece’s Aristotel Onassis first purchased it, some of the most famous names of international politics, the music scene and the film industry have spent time on the deck of “Christina O”. Some of those names include the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Grace Kelly, Prince Rainier, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and more. On that very same boat, the formidable and celebrated former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with former United States President John Kennedy for the very first time.
Following Onassis’ death, the vessel fell into the hands of his daughter Christina, who had given the vessel as a gift to Greece, where it served as a presidential ship for a while, before being purchased once again by a businessman in the John Paul Papanicola shipbuilding company in 1999. Christina O was in a very poor condition by then, and for two years it underwent renovation in Rijeka’s Viktor Lenac shipyard, where its former old glory was restored.
This superb ship can otherwise accommodate a total of 36 guests and 35 crew members. It is, as stated, 99 metres in total length, boasting an outdoor swimming pool and a dance floor with as many as eighteen luxury suites, a library, a children’s playroom, a spa centre, and even a helipad.
Christina O underwent a long renovation procedure in the well-known Viktor Lenac shipyard in Rijeka with the aim of restoring its former appearance and the way in which it looked in its very best days. One very special part of the story of this remarkable ship is Ari’s bar, in which the bar is made of wood of an ancient, sunken Spanish galleon. The handrails on are made from whale teeth and the bar seats are coated by, no less, than the foreskin of a whale’s penis.
