A Voyage of Equal Parts History, Luxury, and Adventure

The M/Y Grace bore many names since Santiago Soulas, an Argentinean, commissioned her in Southampton. She weighed 298 tons, was 147 feet long, with a 23-foot beam and a draft of 12 feet. Soulas named her after his daughter Monica, and kept her four years before selling her to Zarch Couyoumbian, a Greek gentleman who named her Rion.

Rion’s finest hour came on November 22, 1940 with a daring nighttime capture. She was patrolling south of the Isle of Wight with HMS Shemara and HMS Valera. At 2:44 a.m. radar contact was obtained 10 miles southwest. Lt. Brydon ordered pursuit and discovered a German E-boat floundering in the swells, and Rion and Shemara opened fire from astern of the boat. The Germans returned small-arms fire but surrendered when a shell from Rion hit her bridge. Rion escorted the E-Boat to the Portsmouth Harbour naval base.

Rion had not finished yet: she discovered a submarine on the night of March 23, 1941, and made numerous depth charge runs, but the large oil slick seen at dawn was insufficient evidence to confirm that Rion had destroyed the U-boat. By June 3rd, Rion’s port engine had been crippled, and she was decommissioned for three months before returning to duty: stripped of armaments and refitted with three-tier bunks and a red cross painted on her sides and upper deck, she became an annex to the Royal Navy Hospital. Here she remained until the war’s end, when she was rechristened HMS Noir.

On October 1945 she was decommissioned and 17 months later she arrived at her original builders—Southampton’s Camper & Nicholson—for restoration. On September 16, 1947 she was returned to Sir George Tilley who kept her until his death in 1951.

In 1951, Aristotle Onassis’ charter firm acquired HMS Noir and renamed her Arion. He kept the yacht for just over 3 years, hosting countless celebrities on her decks during this period. Sir Winston Churchill, a known friend of Aristotle Onassis, cruised aboard HMS Noir during this period.

In January of 1956, shortly after hearing of Prince Rainier’s engagement to Hollywood Film legend Grace Kelly, Aristotle Onassis presented the yacht to the principality of Monaco as an early gift for the royal couple’s upcoming wedding. Prince Rainier spent over a month refurbishing the yacht to be in perfect conditions to welcome Grace Kelly to Monaco on her arrival aboard the SS Constitution.

After the wedding, the royal couple began their honeymoon with a short stay in Mallorca, Spain, followed by a cruise aboard the yacht—which they christened Deo Juvente II—along the coasts of Corsica and Sardinia.

The yacht was kept by the principality of Monaco for 2 years, until a Jugoslav businesswoman living in Monaco purchased her in 1958 and renamed her Daska, after her daughter. The yacht cruised the waters around Monaco for about 2 years under her new owner, before Crest Shipping’s charter business purchased her and brought her to the Bahamas in 1960.

Around 1975, Vassilios (Bill) Lefakinis, the owner of Valef Yachts in Greece, purchased the yacht, signing the sales contract on a cocktail napkin inside the iconic Athens Hilton Hotel. He promptly renamed her Angela after his mother. The newly christened ship was available for charter for a short time under Cove Shipping Charters in the Caribbean, headquartered in Montego Bay. The yacht remained here for a couple of years until she sailed back to Middle East to help evacuate passengers during the Lebanese Civil War. Then, she underwent a massive upgrade that included a refurbished interior and a new teak deck before re-entering the charter market, where she served passengers until Lefakinis sold her in 1982.

She again became Daska in 1983, before seizure by the Jamaican government for non-payment of taxes. She languished in Montego Bay until 1985, when John Issa, chairman of SuperClubs, discovered her at auction. Thoroughly refitted in Tampa, Florida, she cruised along the East Coast, bearing the name of one of John Issa’s daughters: Zein. The M/Y Zein arrived in Negril for the opening of Grand Lido Negril in 1989 and remained there until 2006, tempting buyers from around the world, including Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, who hoped to use her as a shadow boat for his mega-yacht, The Octopus.

In 2007 Quasar Expeditions acquired the M/Y Zein and rechristened her the M/Y Grace: a name that would take her back into her history, to her most elegant times. Over the course of the next 2 years the yacht was refitted to embark her new era as one of the most elegant and tasteful ships cruising the enchanted Galapagos Islands.