The 'Christina' - A Luxury Yacht Borne from a Canadian WWII Frigate
- Richard Crowder
- 7 minutes ago
- 5 min read
At 325 feet (99 m) long with a 36-foot (11 m) beam, the Christina was said to be the first real superyacht following World War II.
Named after Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis and his first wife’s only daughter, the Christina became the “place to be seen” for many of the world’s celebrities during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
What first brought the Christina into the public eye was its hosting of the much-talked-about post-wedding reception in 1956 for Prince Rainier III of Monaco and Hollywood actress Grace Kelly. Over the years, stars and notable figures such as Sir Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Richard Burton, Greta Garbo, Rudolf Nureyev, Frank Sinatra, John Wayne, Elizabeth Taylor, oil magnate J. Paul Getty, and even the Aga Khan were among the many well-known names who spent time aboard.
But the Christina was not always a pleasure superyacht. In fact, it had an almost inglorious, workhorse beginning as a frigate in the Canadian Navy, serving as a convoy escort in the North Atlantic during the Second World War. As part of an initial order for thirty-three such frigates in 1941, a number that eventually grew to sixty, its keel was laid in late 1942 at Canadian Vickers in Montreal. It was commissioned in November 1943 as Pennant K327 and named HMCS Stormont after the county of the same name in Eastern Ontario.
Stormont served in the Canadian Arctic, the North Atlantic, the English Channel, and during the invasion of Normandy in June 1944. It was powered by a pair of oil-fired steam boilers producing a maximum of 5,500 horsepower, giving it a top speed of 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h) and a cruising speed of 12 knots. It was designed as an improvement over the single-screw Corvette class, with better accommodations, speed, range, electronics, and armament, as well as twin screws. It was therefore classified as a frigate, with twice the range of a Corvette.
In early 1945, after establishing a frigate record of 63 days at sea, the Stormont returned to Canada to be refitted at a Nova Scotia shipyard for further service in the Pacific theatre of war. The refit had begun but was not completed when the war ended, and the Stormont was decommissioned in late 1945. It was sold by the Canadian government in 1947 as war surplus, with plans to refit it as a merchant ship, but the sale ultimately fell through. In 1951, Onassis purchased the vessel for a reputed $34,000, reportedly its scrap value, and had it refurbished as a pleasure yacht in Germany at an estimated cost of $4 million.
The refurbishment was considered exceptionally luxurious by early 1950s superyacht standards and included a master suite and 18 passenger staterooms, which would nonetheless be considered small by today’s standards. A spiral staircase connected all decks, while the yacht featured abundant outdoor deck space as well as indoor lounging and dining areas. The yacht was capable of accommodating 34 guests and a crew of 39.
A full-size swimming pool on the aft main deck features an ancient Greek-themed inlaid mosaic floor that can be raised electrically to become a dance floor. In the main bar, whale teeth were carved into scenes depicting pornography from Homer’s ancient Greek epic Odyssey, which inspired the 2026 epic action-fantasy film of the same name. The barstools are upholstered in soft leather made from whale foreskin, while the footrests are made from sperm whale teeth. There is also a dedicated children’s dining room designed and illustrated by notable American cartoonist, humorist, writer, and illustrator Ludwig Bemelmans. Gold trim and fixtures abound.
In addition to their daughter Christina, born in 1950, Aristotle Onassis and his first wife, socialite and shipping heiress Athina Mary “Tina” Livanos, had a son, Alexander, born in 1948. Tina was 17 and Aristotle was 40 when they married. Alexander died in a plane crash in Athens in 1973 at the age of 24. Tina divorced Aristotle in 1960 after discovering that he had a long-time mistress, world-famous opera singer Maria Callas, who was also married at the time and entertained aboard the Christina on many occasions. A year later, Tina married John Spencer-Churchill, a distant relative of both Diana Spencer and Sir Winston Churchill.
Aristotle remained with the then-divorced Maria Callas as his partner until 1968, when, after a long romance, he married his second wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. As she had done at the White House, Jackie Kennedy-Onassis initiated new décor and had the Christina’s interior repainted in pastel tones.
Following the untimely death of his son Alexander in 1973, Aristotle concentrated on grooming his daughter Christina to take over his shipping empire. He changed his will so that Christina would inherit his yacht, Christina, followed by his wife Jackie. If neither wanted the yacht, it was to be donated to the Greek government for use as a presidential yacht. When Onassis died in 1975 at the age of 69 from medical complications following surgery, that is exactly what happened, as both women declined to accept the yacht.
The Greek government changed the yacht’s name to Argo, after the ship from Greek mythology associated with Jason and the Argonauts, a band of heroes who sailed aboard the Argo in search of the Golden Fleece. But the government seriously neglected the maintenance and upkeep of its new presidential yacht. Meanwhile, the yacht’s original namesake, Aristotle Onassis’ daughter Christina, died in 1988 at the age of 37 from a heart attack in Argentina, where she lived. She had one daughter, Athena, from her fourth and final marriage.
The Greek government put the Argo (formerly Christina) up for sale, but there were no takers. A private sale in 1996 fell through, and the yacht was finally purchased at auction in 1998 by Onassis family friend and Greek shipping magnate John Paul Papanicolaou. He renamed the yacht Christina O and immediately embarked on a two-year, reported $50 million refurbishment. This included replacing the original steam boilers with a pair of low-revving MAN diesel engines. Jackie Kennedy-Onassis died of cancer in New York in 1994 at the age of 65.
Photo - Naval Warfare 
Photo - Naval Warfare 
Photo - Naval Warfare
The Christina O remains a private yacht, having been purchased by a limited partnership in 2000. It has since appeared in at least a couple of movies, including the 2022 satirical comedy Triangle of Sadness and the 2024 film Maria depicting the life of Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie. The yacht was reportedly put up for sale in Europe in 2024 for the equivalent of approximately US$100 million.
There will never be another yacht quite like the Christina O. May she live on in opulence and pleasure, with memories untold. One can only imagine what the Canadian sailors aboard Stormont during the Second World War would have thought of their frigate’s extraordinary future.
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