Christina O is a private motor yacht. She was originally a Canadian anti-submarine River-class frigate called HMCS Stormont and was launched in 1943. She served as a convoy escort during the Battle of the Atlantic and was present at the D-Day landings. After the end of the Second World War she was one of many surplus naval vessels; Greek shipowner Aristotle Onassis purchased her for its scrap value, US$34,000, and then spent US$4 million to convert her into a luxurious superyacht renamed Christina, after his daughter. The Stormont was converted to a yacht in Germany. The conversion made full use of the navy ship’s large hull and powerful naval engineering systems to create large ornate interiors and elaborate luxuries like a mosaic swimming pool which drained and rose to deck level to create a dance floor. Her homeport is Valletta on Malta.
When Aristotle Onassis died in 1975, he left the yacht to his daughter, who gave her to the Greek government for use as a presidential yacht in 1978. She was rechristened the Argo but was allowed to decay. She was put up for sale at US$16 million in the early 1990s, although there were no buyers.
Finally in 1998, she was purchased by Greek shipowner John Paul Papanicolaou, an Onassis family friend who had sailed on her as a child. He changed her name to Christina O, in tribute to Aristotle Onassis, and undertook a major refurbishment between January 1999 and April 2001 that cost over $50 million. In 2005, she became available to charter via Camper & Nicholsons International, the oldest yacht brokerage company in the world. She is currently available for Charter from 455,000 Euro per week.
Christina O has a master suite, eighteen passenger staterooms, and numerous indoor and outdoor living areas, all connected by a spiral staircase. Compared to a typical 21st-century superyacht, her staterooms are small and Christina O lacks the indoor boat storage that is now standard; on the other hand, the number of living areas is large, and the amount of outdoor deck space is very generous. The aft main deck has an outdoor pool with a minotaur-themed mosaic floor that rises at the push of a button to form a dance floor, and there is a helicopter platform on the promenade deck. In Ari’s Bar, the barstools retain the original upholstery crafted from a very soft, fine leather made from the foreskin of a Minke Whale. Because of that, Onassis shall have said: “Excuse me, Madame, did you know you are sitting on the worlds largest ….”.
