Cruise ship sinks near Stockton

Dreamers who bring geriatric ships to the Stockton Delta are often so enticed by what a ship could be that they fail to see what it will likely be: abandoned.

The same goes for the MV Aurora, a 293-foot pocket cruise ship, which sank last week near what was once the Herman & Helen Marina. Old coder lies stern in 13 feet of water in Little Potato Slough, leaking “petroleum product.”

“The incident was completely accidental, a tragic twist of fate…” Chris Willson, the former owner, wrote on his Facebook page, after speaking with the current owner, whom he does not name.

The “incident” was inevitable: if not for the sinking, the owner of the ship would walk away and leave the burden to the taxpayers.

In 2013, Willson had the Aurora towed to Herman & Helen's, a location about six miles northwest of Stockton. I was initially charmed by the ship's faded elegance and colorful history.

A German shipyard launched the ship in 1955. Named Wappen von Hamburg – the coat of arms of Hamburg – it carried, among other things, tourists to the German resort island of Heligoland.

You can read the rest of the ship's history here.

Some anecdotes too good to leave out: it was the villain's ship in a James Bond film; A television writer's Alaska cruise aboard the ship inspired her to create “The Love Boat”; Willson found it on Craigslist.

Yes, Craigslist. The Aurora, having lost its “rizz”, stopped carrying passengers after several decades. He was demoted to the status of a beast of burden. When he came out, he became a white elephant.

Only later did it emerge that Willson and the ship had been removed from San Francisco's Pier 38. The Aurora's engines weren't working and, tellingly, Willson refused to cover the towing costs, so the port paid him $47,500 to leave.

Former San Francisco Port Captain Hedley Prince told me at the time that the ship, under previous owners, had been ousted from many ports and waterfronts.

“Aurora has already been evicted from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Solano, Sacramento and Alameda counties,” Prince said.

The Herman & Helen Marina was then open, operated by tenants Dave and Chris Johnson. The Johnsons, thinking cool vintage boats would attract tourists, sunk pylons for huge ships. They invited not only the Aurora, but also the Fir, a decommissioned 165-foot U.S. Coast Guard lighthouse/buoy from 1938; and HMCS Chaleur, a 152-foot former Canadian minesweeper.

A tugboat, the Mazapeta, also ended up there.

Two problems: the Johnsons were already in the red. The marina quickly closed its doors. Herman & Helen's was placed in receivership by the court amid a tangle of litigation.

And the Johnsons sunk the pylons illegally. Operating a docking facility for large vessels was prohibited, as was expanding the marina without an appropriate land use permit, according to county code enforcement officials.

The county gave the ship's owners 30 days' notice to leave. I have been unable to find a county official who could explain why the county did not force the ships to leave (by some accounts the Aurora was unable to leave because Little Potato Slough silted up and must be dredged).

In 2021, the Heat sank. The ship is underwater on the port side of the Aurora.

On Labor Day 2023, the Mazapeta sank. The Coast Guard raised it; the town of Stockton had to pay to have it towed to Mare Island and dismantled.

The Aurora constitutes a sunken trio.

The Fir is still moored nearby. In 2017, it was purchased by The Lighthouse Project LLC, a Virginia-based group that is restoring it.

In the decade since his arrival, Willson and a rotating team of volunteers have worked to restore the Aurora. They put a lot of work into it. But unless you're wealthy or have government or nonprofit funding, a ship as big as the Aurora is a giant sponge that absorbs more money and work than most people will ever be able to provide it.

“A lot of people think if you own a ship like that you must be rich,” Willson said in 2013. “But that’s not the case. But whatever you have, he will eat it, and whatever you have.

Faced with increasingly skeptical questions, Willson stopped returning my calls. But not before committing to persevere with the restoration of the Aurora, whatever the commitment and cost.

“I will never leave this ship,” he promised in 2014.

Which guy. Last year he left.

Willson blamed others. “Due to the overwhelming number of bad players, I decided to withdraw from this project last October…” he wrote on his Facebook page, where one of his major themes is whoever says what anything negative about his management of the Aurora is an opponent. or a hater.

Because shifting blame is much easier than admitting that you bit off way more than you could chew and bailed.

Willson, who left the state, writes that he decided to “pass on my interest in the ship to someone who thought he could move the project forward and handle the political side of it.”

It's not clear whether “convey my interest” means “gift this wonderful container” or “send this turkey.” What is clear is that Willson takes no responsibility whatsoever.

“I had hope,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle last week, “but at the same time I realize that not everyone had the capacity to continue the project.” Everyone? It was his baby.

Lt. Commander Mark Leahey, US Coast Guard Sector San Francisco, is the incident commander for the Aurora sinking.

“We can't say for sure what caused it to sink at this point, but what you see above the waterline and what you see below are two different things,” he said. .

In other words, a rusty steel hull could be the cause, but only time will tell.

Bill Wells, director of the California Delta Chambers & Visitors Bureau, said the handling of the Aurora was “simply outrageous.”

“Any boat that isn’t towed every once in a while is going to sink,” he said. “Basically, he was raised here to rot.”

Thus, 2,496 gross tonnes of rusty metal are found in Little Potato Slough. The US Coast Guard and the sheriff's marine patrol had to intervene. A “unified command” had to be formed with representatives from the Coast Guard, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife's Office of Spill Prevention and Response, and the city of Stockton.

Booms had to be deployed to contain and absorb any oil or diesel escaping from the ship. Floating booms were also installed around the intake of the Stockton Delta Water Project, and the entire project was closed “out of an abundance of caution,” a city spokesperson said . Divers from World Maritime Services were hired to inspect and repair the hull and place pumps in the now submerged interior to drain and refloat the ship. The Federal Oil Spill and Liability Trust Fund must be called upon.

And that's just the beginning. What to do with this enormous ship and who is responsible for the likely painful cost of its removal remains to be determined.

“We have been in contact with several parties, what we call, responsible,” Lt. Commander Leahey said. “The first person unfortunately had no insurance or means to pay for the intervention, which is why the Coast Guard took responsibility.”

Do not worry. Willson says he will help her.

“(In) my attempts to make this dream a reality, I will be creating a GoFundMe or other crowdfunding page to help save the Aurora,” he wrote on Facebook.

Two words, Mr. Willson: please don't do it.

Michael Fitzgerald's column appears Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram under the name Stocktonopolis. E-mail:mfitzgeraldstockton@

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