Sea Cloud luxury sailboats

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

from Noticias 4.11.21

I didn't see this until after the event - I would have liked to see them for myself. See the link for some amazing pics!

Sea Cloud in Puerto

Two world-class sailboats, converted into luxury cruise ships, landed last evening at the dock of Puerto del Rosario, these are two mythical sailboats, transformed today into luxury tourism ships.

 

The "Sea Cloud II" is the companion of the veteran ship "Sea Cloud". In the case of the first, it is a ship of purely Spanish invoice, designed by the company SENER, founded at the end of the fifties by the prestigious naval engineer Enrique de Sendagorta Aramburu and built in Astilleros Gondán (Asturias).

 

Of 117 meters in length and three masts, it entered service in 2001 with capacity for 96 passengers and 63 crew. Its interior was totally created by designers from El Corte Inglés in one of their most original projects.

If we talk about the "Sea Cloud II" we can not stop doing it of the story of its most veteran companion, who keeps an exciting history as a pleasure ship, unofficial embassy, military ship, dictator's yacht, school ship, ruinous sailboat and today dazzling cruise ship.

The history of this ship dates back to two years after the crash of 1929, when the New York tycoon E.F. Hutton gave a splendid four-masted pleasure yacht to his wife, the businesswoman Marjorie Merriweather. After divorcing, she renamed him Sea Cloud.

 

She married again, to a diplomat, and ship went on to serve as an unofficial U.S. trade mission around the world. It was not uncommon to see diplomats on board. Even senior American and Soviet dignitaries slept several nights in it. During World War II, the ship was mobilized by the U.S. government. He initially became a coast guard. At this stage the ship underwent an aesthetic change, taking on the appearance of a military vessel.

After her war, Mrs. Merriweather invested a fortune in order to recover its original appearance, but finally sold it to the Dominican head of state Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, who renamed it Angelita in 1955 and became considered a presidential yacht. After the death of the dictator, his family fled the country on this ship but was intercepted and the government awarded it to the Dominican Navy.

 

A mission was never found and the ship was abandoned in the port of Panama until some Germans bought it. They took it to Hamburg and rebuilt there. They gave it a second life, returning it to its original appearance and turning it into a cruise ship.

 

The success of the Sea Cloud in the cruise market, encouraged the company to build a second new vessel: the Sea Cloud II, which today we can see in Puerto del Rosario.

Tamara: the following day there was another of the Sea Clouds in at Puerto - again the info was published too late to take advantage of and I can't know find the article. I'm sure it said the minimum cost to be one of the passengers was 1000E a day!!

[windermeregolfer]

Saw them sailing south past Caleta on Thursday afternoon, they were quite a way out and I didn't have my main camera with me for a photo 😢😢 but able to take this image off FB

   

[Johnrgby]

An old friend of mine, took his then girlfriend now his wife on  a 21 day Caribbean cruise on one of these boats in 2012/13, cost him  circa £30,000, and swore it was worth every penny.

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Sea Cloud Spirit was in Puerto yesterday. I drove into the docks in the hope of seeing it up close but I could only get as far as the Armas office.



I believe it was off to Las Palmas next and then Arrecife.

[Johnrgby]

We saw her coming in in full sail yesterday afternoon, magnificent sight.