Mystery over suspicious sinking of 'The Love Boat' that was featured in James Bond movie: 'Very strange'

The sinking of the cruise ship that inspired 'The Love Boat' and was featured in the James Bond film 'From Russia With Love' has been a mystery since it became submerged six months ago.

The 70-year-old MS Aurora, a 2,500-ton German vessel named Wappen von Hamburg cruiser, later grew to 'Hollywood' stardom until it hit a string of bad luck.

After a slew of different owners, the ship was eventually abandoned and fell into despair as it became a shelter for the homeless and a drug den - before it took on water.

In May, the vessel sank in the back channel of Sacramento's San Joaquin Delta. Since the ordeal, there have been accusations and finger pointing over its doomed fate.

The tale of the ship's demise and how it ended up in the Northern California Delta, an estuary located in San Francisco Bay that provides fresh water to two-thirds of the state, is puzzling.

Many were heartsick over Aurora's descent on the night of May 22, including Peter Knego, a cruise ship historian, who has been smitten with the vessel since he first laid eyes on her as a teen in the 1970s.

'It's all very strange,' Knego told the The Los Angeles Times, 'all this nefarious dark stuff.'

'Who actually owns the ship? Why did she sink? Who should be held responsible?' Knego asked. 

'And what on earth should happen to the ship now that she has been "refloated" and sits hobbled less than a mile from Stockton's drinking water intake?'

The ship has had several owners, most of them men, who were enchanted by her.

Chris Willson had big dreams for the Aurora when he purchased the ship on Craigslist hoping to restore it to the ships integrity.

The software developer took to Instagram and posted images of her rehabilitation along with his team over the years on the restoration project.

But last fall, he sold the boat to a secret buyer due to 'small-mind governance.'

He told the LA Times that 'he felt beaten down by a number of local authorities' before he made the difficult decision to sell.

'I came there to do something good for the ship, to save a pretty valuable piece of history in my opinion,' Willson said. 'Luck would have it that I got stuck in Stockton.'

Willson, who is originally from Utah, lived on the vessel with his partner, Jin Li, and made the boat a home while he spent much of his time restoring the vessel.

He said he was shocked when he learned that the ship had partially sunk only months after selling it.

The San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said at the time, 'It has been determined the ship has suffered a hole and is taking on water and is currently leaking diesel fuel and oil into the Delta Waterway.   

The US Coast Guard later removed an estimated 21,675 gallons of oil-contaminated water, 3,193 gallons of waste and five 25-yard bins of debris – all from the vessel.

Willson said: ‘I didn’t see it sinking. We had it for 15 years, and we had no problem with it.

He added: 'I meticulously maintained that ship and put in more than $1 million into its refurbish. I checked everything on it multiple times every day. We were on it all of the time… It just saddens me like nothing else.'

Despite the criticism he faced from locals, Willson said he still looks back on his time with the ship fondly.

'We absolutely loved our time with that ship,' Willson said. 'It [selling] was probably the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.'

But others did not have the same sentiment.

Connie Cochran, one of Stockton's community relations officer, said 'there's no love here,' whose city is footing the bill to keep the Aurora refloated.

U.S. Rep. Josh Harder also expressed his frustration with the 'abandoned boats' along the Delta, and recently established legislation that would require owners of big boats to have more insurance and more liability.

According to the news outlet, Harder was on the scene as the Coast Guard tried to contain oil leaking from the ship last spring. 

Another boat went down in the same spot last year where the Aurora sank, as per the news outlet.

Jeraldine Saunders, who worked as a cruise director during the early days of the Aurora, shared that her memories of those cruises was part of the inspiration for 'The Love Boat,' during the 70s and 80s.

The ship was also featured in the 1963 James Bond classic, 'From Russia with Love.'  

Knego shared the boat's remarkable history.

The Aurora was built in a shipyard in 1955 Hamburg, Germany, where she was christened the Wappen von Hamburg. 

He told the LA Times it was the first 'significant' passenger ship built in Germany after the wreckage of World War II.

The majestic ship - that stretches nearly 300 feet stem to stern - was regal with three- towering decks, staterooms and a hair salon.

On her maiden voyage, she carried 1,600 guests, he explained. 

After the ship spent a few years sailing the North Sea, the Aurora moved south to Greece, and was renamed the Delos, and became one of the first modern ships to bring cruising to the Aegean Sea.

In the late 1960s, the ship had been sold again this time and called Pacific Star and Polar Star sailing through America's West Coast.

The ship began to face rough seas. 

During the early 1970s, a new owner named Donald Ferguson bought the ship and called her the Xanadu, and by 1977, the ship was in the Port of Seattle. 

After several unfortunate experiences, the ship was towed to Los Angeles.

In the early 1990s, the ship - renamed the Faithful - was sold to a religious group. The new owners planned to transform it into a Christian relief ship.

But, those plans never came to fruition.

The ship would later become a hotbed for the destitute and squatters, Knego explained.

In an effort to reach out to the religious group, who did not return his calls, he rented a boat and tried to approach her by sea, only to be told to go away, as per the news outlet.

At that point, Knego knew there were something odd taking place on the ship. 

The Coast Guard eventually evicted the squatters, but it would eventually become a drug den in the mid 2000s and a floating homeless shelter, according to Alameda officials.

City officials in Alameda were eager to find someone who would just take the ship away. 

The value of the ship, at that point, was less than $2,000 and scrapping the vessel would prove to be too expensive.

City officials declared her an abandoned vessel, until 2008 when they paid a man named Curt Lind $200,000 to get the ship out of Alameda.

The 80-year-old Lind was a colorful character. He spoke of his love of ships with the LA Times, 'It's a sickness...a sickness that a lot of men get,' he said.

One of his goals, he explained, was to take some of the money from the city of Alameda and turn her into a floating restaurant.

The California State Lands Commission, which has jurisdiction over California's rivers, determined that the ship was moored illegally. 

The commission's staff report also noted that the ship was sitting next to another ailing vessel, an old ferryboat called the San Diego.

When Lind was told to move the ship, he decided it was 'just getting too much for me to take care of, so I just decided, you know, to get rid' of her, and that is when he listed the ship on Craigslist.

In August 2008, Willson, a software developer in Santa Cruz, who was 36 at the time, saw the ad. He described himself as not a 'boat guy,' and his intention was to film her and use the footage to show off a 'virtual tour' software he was developing.

He was bewitched and claimed 'the ship had a magnetic pull on me,' he later wrote in a history of his first few years with the ship.

He faced many challenges after becoming the new owner of the dilapidated luxury liner. He also already owned two other boats, the Fir and the Robert Gray, as well.

After nearly 15 years of trying to keep the ship afloat and dealing with red tape and bureaucracy, he decided he didn't have it in him to fight anymore. He found a buyer and left California.

On May 20 of this year, Knego was in Northern California and decided to pay a visit to the Aurora.

'The ship looked terrible,' he recalled. A hot wind blowing through the Delta that day added to his sense of foreboding. A friend who had accompanied him was unsettled, telling him: 'I want to get out of here. It's full of bad vibes.'

Two days later, the Aurora went down.