Chania Crete, Greece
“We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds”. – Aristotle Onassis
The only thing I knew about Greece when I was growing up in 1960s Saskatchewan was centered around Aristotle Onassis. I remember listening to newscasts and seeing images of the Greek shipping tycoon on television. I watched in fascination as he floated around the Mediterranean on his yacht, entertaining the rich and famous, with JFK’s widow, or some other celebrity on board.
Onassis’ yachting lifestyle was glamorous, and about as far from my reality as it was possible to be.
Aristotle Onassis rose from a child refugee during the Greco-Turkish War, to one of the world’s richest and most famous men, but how he made his fortune is far less interesting than how he spent it.
This story is about Onassis’ yacht, Christiana O.
Like Aristotle Onassis, his yacht started from humble beginnings.
And, it has a Canadian element….
A Royal Canadian Navy frigate you have probably never heard of became one of the most famous luxury vessels on earth.
HCMS Stormont was built in Montreal and launched in 1943. It entered military service as a supply ship and functioned as a support vessel on D-Day.
HCMS Stormont, with Royal Canadian Navy designation K327, preparing to leave harbour for service during WWII.
After the war, Stormont returned to Halifax where she was decommissioned as a war ship.
Stormont spent a few years in a merchant fleet before being sold to Aristotle Onassis as salvage, in 1951. Onassis renamed the vessel Christiana O after his daughter and commissioned a German shipbuilder to repurpose it as a luxury yacht.
Onassis spent $4,000,000, a vast fortune at the time, to rebuild the Christiana O. He installed a swimming pool, a spiral staircase, and 19 lavish staterooms.
The mosaic floor of the swimming pool rises to become a dance floor.
The Christiana O’s swimming pool mosaic is a replica of a bull-leaping fresco found at Knossos, an ancient Minoan archeological site in Greece.
Bear and I saw the fresco first-hand this week.
The former warship’s size was used to advantage; it allowed engineers to create spacious onboard entertaining areas. Artists were commissioned to furnish and decorate the luxurious rooms.
Among the more ostentatious (and bizarre) accoutrements of the Christiana O are barstools upholstered with whale foreskins….
… and pornographic scenes from the Odyssey carved into whale’s tooth ornaments.
The Christiana set the standard for luxury yachts in the 1960s and 70s.
Everybody who was anybody during the time period was invited on board. Maria Callas (renowned Greek opera singer and Onassis’ mistress) rode the waves on Christiana O regularly. Richard Burton, Prince Rainier of Monaco, Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, and hundreds of other stars of stage and screen, royalty, politicians, business moguls, sports celebrities, and gangsters all took turns as Onassis’ guests on the Christiana O.
President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy became friends of Onassis while they sailed with him.
After JFK was assassinated in 1963, Onassis courted and married Jackie.
Bear and I went down to the harbour in Chania today to see if there were any yachts for hire, but we came up empty.
There were a few sail boats, a coast guard cruiser, and some touristy day trip boats, but we had visions of sailing like Onassis.
Later back at the hotel, I searched the internet to see what renting a yacht entails.
This 30’ cruiser with two crew members aboard was advertised for €80,000 a week. ($130,000CAD)
Almost $20,000 a day and you have to sit on stools covered in cow leather!…
… O Christiana!
This is more our style….
… two mannequins in a dingy, sitting on a rooftop, one rowing, one fishing, with a crane in the background loading a … Rubik’s cube? And a fat calico cat in the foreground.
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