A man found a cruise ship on Craigslist and decided to buy it. Like someone who walks past a street that smells like sweets and ends up buying a donut, except the cruise ship was a bit more expensive… It was a dream, like any other. This is the story of Chris Willson. The man saw the cruise ship, fell in love with it and wanted to buy it. It sounds like an impulsive decision, right?
In fact, it is. What seemed like a very good investment ended up being a black hole of money, time and frustration. More than a million dollars invested, years of work, and the ship ended up sinking before ever setting sail… The story has gone viral on social media because it went wrong in the cruelest possible way.
Aurora
That is what he named the ship he had just bought, and with which he had fallen completely in love. He did some research and discovered that it had been one of the first ocean liners built in Germany in 1955; it was a true gem.
“Where have I gotten myself into?”
It all began with a very simple listing: an old, abandoned cruise ship that nobody wanted. But it had potential, or so the listing said. This man saw it and thought, “It is crazy, but this is my chance.” He had everything planned out, almost like the story of the girl with the milk jug. He would buy it, remodel the interior and create a floating hotel, a mini museum inside the cruise ship or maybe a tourist project no one had ever seen. He saw magic where the rest of us saw only scrap metal…
At first it was not that much
But it ended up shaking any bank account. The ship was cheap, but it needed a lot of work, as almost always happens when you buy something old, but it was too late to turn back.
All the systems had to be replaced: the electricity, the hull, the engines, the plumbing… not to mention the permits, insurance and certifications needed to be allowed to stay afloat. When he realized it, he had spent more than one million dollars!!!
One man, one ship… and an impossible dream
Restoring a cruise ship is not like fixing a vintage RV, it is a cruise ship!!! You need huge teams, hundreds of different professionals and a big budget, but this man tried to be brave and wanted to save it.
“We were making incredible progress on Aurora,” said Willson, who even showed that they had a YouTube channel where they documented the process.
Several ships sank that same year, and they received a notice to evacuate, but no one came to carry out the eviction. Willson believes that Aurora was not in the best location and that maybe that affected its repair; perhaps if it had been in another port, the ending would have been different
A dream was sinking (literally)
Everything fell apart for good when the ship showed up with a water leak (like the Titanic). They refloated it, but everything looked very bad, so he decided to sell it. He had no other option, it was spilling fuel into the water…
“I told you so”
That was what flooded the internet: countless comments about whether it was bravery or recklessness, but who are we to judge a dream?
The very thin line between dreaming and jumping
Willson does not understand what happened to his ship if for fourteen years he checked it every day to make sure it was fine. He had to say goodbye to a dream that had taken practically all his money.
But something remains from this story: the desire to fix something, to fulfill a dream, to take a leap even if it seems impossible. Naivety, madness or courage, but also something worth remembering. Even if not all dreams go well, sometimes it is worth trying!