"It haunts me and I lose sleep over it."

Ship of Fools

Tech business guy Chris Wilson bought a broken-down cruise ship off Craigslist and spent years and lots of money trying to restore it, according to CNN.

But the 293-foot rust bucket is now sinking in a river delta in California and looks to be headed for its farewell voyage to the salvage yard, giving new meaning to the term "sunk-cost fallacy."

"It haunts me and I lose sleep over it," Wilson, who's originally from Utah, told the news outlet. "I’m not happy about it."

The mothership of all DIY projects started when Wilson first saw the vessel on Craigslist back in 2008 and felt called to restore the ship to its former glory as a "pocket" ocean liner, according to CNN. Built in 1955 in Germany, it had the teutonic moniker of Wappen von Hamburg and several owners before Wilson purchased it.

Wilson then spent about 15 years restoring the ship, now renamed the Aurora, with his own money — estimated to be more than a million dollars — and lovingly recorded the process on his YouTube account, which has more than 83,000 subscribers.

The watery money pit eventually became too much for him in recent years, forcing him to sell it to an undisclosed buyer who at first seemed just as passionate about the ship as Wilson, according to CNN.

But in May of this year, local officials said the ship was sinking and was leaking pollutants into the waters near the city of Stockton, where it's been moored since 2012.

Sinking Feeling

Contractors were hired to refloat the ship, which usually involves patching it up and lightening its load by removing fuel and other stuff from the vessel, according to CNN.

Now city officials are trying to figure out how to get it to a salvage yard, while residents have been pointing fingers at Wilson for abandoning ship and sinking them with the cost of its clean up, removal and salvage.

But Wilson said he is ready to help its current title holder in rerouting the vessel from going to the scrap heap, which would be an ignominious but predictable ending for a ship that was already rusty and riddled with holes from the start.

"I don’t really want to let it go," he said. "But it’s no longer my vessel."

Does Wilson have any regrets for sinking years and a boat load of money into a project that had run aground?

No sir. He's going down with this ship.

"I don’t have any regrets on what I’ve done," he said. "It’s been a great learning experience and showed a lot of people my abilities. I couldn’t ask for anything more."

More on cruise ships: Cruise Ship Alarmed to Discover a 50,000-pound Dead Whale Stuck to the Front of It, Seemingly After Getting Run Down and Dying


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