Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Yacht Southern Cross

Howard Hughes bought the 338 ft yacht Rover sight unseen in 1933 after the former owner Lord Inchscape, chairman of the P&O steamship line passed away.
He renamed the yacht Southern Cross but sold it before WW2. It ended its life as part of the Mexican navy and was scrapped in 1960.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It also rescued 376 survivors from the torpedoed liner Athenia in 1939. This act started the Battle of the Atlantic. The torpedo hit the ship just 7 hours after the British declared war on Nazi Germany.

Mister G said...

Do you know who owned it during that time?

Staffan Gunnarson said...

It was the Swedish entreprenuer Axel_wenner-Gren - blacklisted during the war by the British & Americans, due to his connections with Germany. He had a friendship with the Duke of Windsor while in the Bahamas, where the former king Edward VIII was installed by Churchill as Governor after the war break ot. The ex-king of course also suspected for his Nazi-connections.