Indian may buy Onassis ship

MUMBAI: President John F Kennedy first met Sir Winston Churchill aboard this vessel. And her decks hosted two of the most celebrated wedding receptions of the last century — Prince Rainier with Grace Kelly and Aristotle Onassis with Jacqueline Kennedy. And now an Indian might just own it.

Seven years after she was revamped in 1998, Christina O, legendary yacht of the late shipping magnate Onassis, is in the news again. Her present owner, a Greek businessman, is planning to sell the vessel, estimated to be worth US$70 million, or Rs320 crore.

“Considering her legacy, the price is not exorbitant,” says Mehernosh Shroff, the businessman’s Indian representative. “My client knows its value and is willing to bide his time.” Shroff has already got feelers from well-known Indian industrialists, including one who runs a full-fledged shipping business from Gujarat.

But why should any Indian want to buy the yacht? Onassis had no sentimental or business links with India. Further, Mumbai industrialists who own yachts do not use them for entertainment on the high seas but simply to ferry them to their holiday homes in Alibaug and Mandwa-Rewas.

But Shroff says there are benefits: “Owning the boat of a businessman like Onassis gains the owner international repute. Why else would steel magnate Laxmi Mittal decide to buy a yacht once owned by the Sultan of Brunei?”