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Boat of the Week: Meet ‘Cujo,’ the 80-Foot Yacht Where Late Movie Producer Dodi Al-Fayed Once Wooed Princess Diana

The couple spent some of their final summer cruising around saint-tropez aboard this fast, military-looking yacht., howard walker, howard walker's most recent stories.

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For a few brief weeks back in the summer of 1997, Cujo was the most famous boat in the world.

Not because of her intimidating military lines, or blistering 40-knot performance. It’s because Diana, Princess of Wales, hung out aboard in Saint-Tropez with the boat’s owner, and romantic partner Dodi Al-Fayed.

Countless paparazzi shots show the once future Queen of England on Cujo‘s narrow sidedecks, soaking up the Mediterranean sun. By the end of August that year, both Diana and Dodi would be dead after that fatal car wreck in Paris.

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Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Fayed spent some of their final summer cruising around Saint-Tropez aboard Cujo .  Courtesy Patrick Bar-Nice Matin/AP Images

Yet this rakish 80-footer was a headliner long before Diana stepped on board. Her first owner was Austrian Johnny Von Neumann, an entrepreneur, playboy and passionate sports-car racer who became the largest Porsche-VW distributor in the US.

In 1972, Von Neumann commissioned the Italian shipyard Baglietto to build him a boat with one goal: It had to go fast—faster than any other motoryacht on the water. To deliver, the shipyard installed twin 54-liter V-18 turbo diesels delivering a combined 2,700 horsepower.

Flat out, Cujo —said to be an ancient Indian word meaning “unstoppable force”—could easily top 40 knots, or 46 mph. Von Neumann blasted up and down the Cote d’Azur for a few years before ordering an even faster Baglietto—this time with jet turbine power. He sold Cujo to arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi who, at the time, was reckoned to be the richest man in the world.

The fast, military exterior gives way to an almost old-fashioned cockpit with wood cabinets and leather seats.  Courtesy Simon Kidston

Khashoggi eventually passed the boat on to his nephew Dodi Al-Fayed, who immediately sent her to the CARM shipyard in Lavagna, Italy, for a full refit.

Back in Saint-Tropez, and moored in her reserved spot on the town’s main quay outside the famed Le Sénéquier restaurant, Fayed would invite many of his Hollywood friends for a cruise. During the summers, everyone from Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis, Bruce Willis and one-time girlfriend, Brooke Shields, were seen aboard.

Following Dodi and Diana’s death, Cujo quickly fell into disrepair. Decommissioned in 1999, she was hauled out at the CARM yard and spent several years in storage.

The main salon is smaller than many contemporary 80-foot motoryachts, but few other boats its size have the same 40-knots-plus top end.  Courtesy Simon Kidston

The boat was eventually rescued by Dodi’s cousin Moody Al-Fayed, who spent over $1 million bringing her back to life. Part of the work included uprating those massive diesels to deliver 1,650 hp each.

Now fast forward to February last year. After two summers of cruising Cujo around Sardinia and Italy’s Amalfi coast, Moody decided to sell. Strangely, he entered the boat in the Retromobile classic car auction in Paris.

That’s where well-known British car collector, buyer, seller and restorer Simon Kidston appeared. Kidston had spied Cujo in the Retromobile auction catalog, read that it was being sold by his old school-friend Fayed, and decided to bid.

The 1972 Baglietto has innovative features like the amidships helm and social area, and two sunbeds on the foredeck.  Courtesy Simon Kidston

“On the day of the auction, I was tied up with clients so asked a colleague to go down and take a look. I told him that if it was going cheaply, put in a bid for a bit of fun,” Kidston tells Robb Report .

“The bidding opened at just 150,000 Euros—that’s around $165,000. My colleague bid 160,000 Euros,” says Kidston. “Trouble was, no one else bid. The hammer went down and I had bought a boat. The feeling was a mix of excitement, tinged with terror.”

Unfortunately, just as Simon took delivery of Cujo at Lavagna, where she was moored, Europe was starting to lock down with the coronavirus pandemic.

The internal helm station is outfitted with modern electronics, but in a nod to its historic past, the wheel is definitely old school.  Courtesy Simon Kidston

But he did get to take her out during a video shoot in and around Portofino  for his YouTube channel Kidston Productions, where the boat meets up with Simon’s own ’70s Lamborghini Miura supercar. Entitled A Portofino Affair, the footage of Cujo at speed is breathtaking.

“She has immense presence,” said Kidston. “No boat of its size commands that kind of attention when she comes into a harbor.” Especially an Italian harbor when nervous local boat owners think she’s with the financial police.

“As you’d expect, those engines have tons and tons of performance,” Kidston adds. “We’ve seen 41 knots. But they have a very different sound than I was expecting; instead of a roar from the exhausts, there’s this amazing whistle from the turbos.”

The diesel engines were upgraded from the original 2,700 to 3,300 horsepower.  Courtesy Simon Kidston

While Kidston and his family had planned to cruise the Med this summer, the car enthusiast received an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“A young member of a prominent Italian business family—he’s 30 years old—had seen Cujo in Lavagna, fallen in love with her and asked if she was for sale,” he says. “He took delivery last week, just in time for his birthday.”

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Inside the Superyacht Princess Diana and Dodi Al-Fayed Spent Their Final Vacation On

A look at the vessel that saw the beloved royal’s last vacation.

T he Crown’s sixth season debuts this week on Netflix, chronicling the final weeks before Princess Diana’s untimely death in a car crash in Paris in August 1997. Amid the heart-wrenching moments that are sure to unfold, there’s one backdrop that will be a refreshing departure from the stately, windowless halls of the queen’s palatial residences : the multimillion-dollar super yacht that Princess Diana spent aboard touring St. Tropez just days before her death.

It was hot gossip, this adventure that the princess took abroad after having finalized her divorce from then Prince Charles less than a year before—something that was hinted at at the end of season 5 of The Crown as Queen Elizabeth is pressed to endorse a vacation a-sea with Fayed and her grandchildren, Prince Harry and Prince William. Diana was famously photographed sitting on the passerelle of this boat. Years later, in real life, Harry described the trip in his memoir, Spare , with fond recollection. “Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven,” he wrote.

While the series was filmed on a lookalike super yacht in Mallorca , the real boat was equally lavish. The 208-foot ship was commissioned by Dodi’s father, former Harrods owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, who brought on naval architect Vincenzo Ruggiero to design it in the late 1980s. It was built by Italian shipyard Codecasa and launched in 1990. The steel and aluminum super yacht boasted nine staterooms that altogether accommodate up to 18 people, in addition to a crew of 26. Amenities included a Jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, formal dining room, a bar, and office space. Mohamed had named the yacht Jonikal (it has subsequently been called Sokar and is currently called Bash ) .

Shortly after Diana’s and Dodi’s deaths, Mohamed gave the interior a redesign by H2 Yacht Design and a refit that included extending the hull. He attempted to sell the yacht on a number of occasions, ultimately parting with it in 2014 to an anonymous buyer. The new owner carried out further work, including machinery upgrades, a repaint, and fresh teak decks. In 2021, the yacht came into the hands of Bassim Haidar , the founder of Intercomm and GMT, who gave it a further $9.7 million refit after a reported bridge deck fire—and its current name Bash . It’s now back to turn-key condition after an 18-month remodel completed in April 2023 by marine engineering and management company Capax and boat interior company Bobic Yacht Interiors . It features a beauty salon, massage area, high-tech gym, and a spacious main salon.

In May, Robb Report reported that Bash is available for charter in the Mediterranean starting at $278,000 per week, plus expenses. In June, Haidar listed Bash for $16.8 million, according to Boat International .

There was a second motor yacht named Cujo, which Diana and Fayed also took earlier that summer. It was built in Italy in 1972 for John von Neumann, who commissioned the Italian Baglietto shipyard to build the world's fastest motor yacht. She was given two 18-cylinder engines that allowed it to go as fast as 42 knots. Fayed had bought the boat from his cousin, Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. In August, the Mediterranean Sea reclaimed Cujo, as the 62-foot artifact of Diana’s life hit an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer on July 29 and sprang a leak, Vanity Fair reported. The seven people on board were rescued by teams from Antibes and safely returned to shore.

An imitation of Jonikal will feature in The Crown season 6, a set that was intended to visually illuminate the tension between Diana and the royal family. “Diana’s south of France adventure was bright and lovely pastel colors, and her world even in Kensington Palace is optimistic and warm, compared to the queen’s residence at Balmoral, which is very static, with gloomy light and drab colors,” set decorator Alison Harvey tells ELLE DECOR.

Filming on the yacht off the island of Mallorca (a St. Tropez stand-in) required many moving parts with few do-overs. “We brought in the drapes, the artwork, many furnishings,” Harvey explains. “Everything was set in the early ’90s, so we thought hard about the colors and textures that we brought in.” Harvey’s team had just half a day to dress the yacht, and then it was off to sea. “There was no getting on or off after that,” Harvey says, adding that they were “subsumed by the logistics of what we had to achieve and the time we had to do it.”

However painstaking the process, the yacht scenes will offer an intriguing context—though largely fictitious—for the iconic photographs that exist of those final weeks leading up to Diana’s death.

Rachel Silva, the Assistant Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, covers design, architecture, trends, and anything to do with haute couture. She has previously written for Time, The Wall Street Journal, and Citywire.

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Diana's last day: Dodi's yacht, a Ritz suite, a diamond ring and relentless photographers

Diana, divorced from Prince Charles after he cheated on her, was the mother of the future king of England and the most photographed woman in the world

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By Michael S. Rosenwald

The last day of Princess Diana’s life began on the top deck of her lover’s yacht, with croissants and fresh jams.

Diana and her beau, Dodi Al Fayed, sipped their coffee marveling at the breathtaking Emerald Coast in Sardinia. Diana took hers with milk. Fayed took his black. There were kiwis, too.

“They were in a good mood,” his butler remembered later. “They were always laughing, holding hands.”

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Their romance was a whirlwind — passionate, thrilling, scandalous. Fayed, the son of Harrod’s department store owner Mohamed Al-Fayed, was a rich playboy. Diana, divorced from Prince Charles after he cheated on her, was the mother of the future king of England and the most photographed woman in the world.

That Saturday — Aug. 30, 1997 — promised to be a moment of change. The princess knew it. She snuck a call to Richard Kay, a friend who covered the Royals for the Daily Mail, and told him, as he later wrote, “she had decided to radically change her life.”

“She was going to complete her obligations to her charities,” Kay continued, “and then, around November, would completely withdraw from her formal public life.” Diana had not told Kay why, but he had a hunch: “They were, to use an old but priceless cliche, blissfully happy. I cannot say for certain that they would have married, but in my view it was likely.”

In the 20 years since she’s been gone, there have been countless revisions to this love story. Her friends and relatives: They weren’t in love! His friends and relatives: They were in love!

Get a dash of perspective along with the trending news of the day in a very readable format.

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Last week, in the Daily Mail, Kay published an article with this headline: “Was Diana about to dump Dodi?” In it, he quoted Diana’s private secretary saying she’d planned to return home after becoming bored with Fayed.

“It’s very much a personal view,” the secretary said, “but I don’t think she would have seen Dodi again once she got back.”

Whatever the case, Fayed wanted to propose that fateful night. It was summer. As they were on holiday, Britain announced plans to invite the Irish Republican Army for peace talks. Conspiracies theories about the suicide of Vincent Foster, President Bill Clinton’s lawyer, were spreading. Israel and Lebanon were sparring with one another.

Fayed’s primary concern was the six-figure diamond ring waiting in Paris. People close to Fayed said the couple picked it out a week earlier even though they had been dating less than a month.

The danger of their relationship wasn’t its brevity. To royal watchers, to Buckingham Palace, and no doubt to the British tabloids whose photographers were hounding them, the threat was something the couple apparently had not yet considered, even as rumours swirled that Diana was already pregnant.

“For the mother of the future king of England to bear the child of a Muslim Arab, a child who would be the half sibling of the heir to the throne, would be embarrassing in the eyes of the royal family and the ruling Establishment,” former Time magazine reporters Tom Sancton and Scott MacLeod wrote in their book, Death of a Princess .

Fayed’s calendar that day had just one entry — at 6:30 p.m., he was to pick up the ring at a store near his father’s hotel in Paris, The Ritz. They left the boat for Fayed’s plane around 11:30 a.m., taking along the butler and a masseuse for Fayed’s painful back.

As soon as they landed in Paris, Fayed saw the paparazzi out his window.

“Dodi did not want this special occasion ruined by a bunch of a shutter-happy cowboys trying to corral them on motorcycles and shoving lenses in their faces,” the ex-Time reporters wrote. “As soon as the door opened, cameras started clicking.”

The aggressiveness of the photographers — and their sheer numbers — would increase as the day progressed.

Diana and Fayed arrived at The Ritz in the late afternoon. She went to the salon for a hair appointment. He went to the jeweler. The couple then rested in the hotel’s Imperial Suite before going to Fayed’s apartment to get dressed for dinner. She checked in with her children, who were in Scotland with Prince Charles and the queen.

“On that Saturday evening, Diana was as happy as I have ever known her,” her friend Kay wrote in the Daily Mail. “For the first time in years, all was well with her world.”

They left for Fayed’s apartment around 7 p.m., trailed by photographers. More were waiting at the building’s front door when they arrived. Fayed fumed. There was an ugly shoving match.

Once inside, Fayed pulled his butler aside, telling him about his plan to propose that night.

“The ring was on the nightstand in his bedroom,” author Christopher Anderson wrote in “The Day Diana Died.” “Dodi had checked to make sure they had several bottles of Dom Pérignon on ice for the big moment.”

But dinner was a bust.

The first restaurant they tried — Chez Benoit, a cozy, casual bistro not far from the city centre – was quickly overrun by photographers. They split and headed for The Ritz, ducking into the dining room hoping to be left alone.

The princess ordered vegetable tempura. Fayed ordered grilled turbot.

“No sooner had they ordered,” the ex-Time reporters wrote, “they began to feel the indiscreet stares of other diners.”

The couple left and had the food delivered to the Imperial Suite. Fayed’s plan was in shambles. They had to get back to the apartment. But how? The hotel was swarming with photographers.

Fayed devised a plan: The couple’s driver and bodyguards would make a big show out front, appearing to get their caravan of Mercedes sedans ready to leave. Meanwhile, the Princess and Fayed would slip out the back door, in a borrowed car driven by a hotel security officer.

What happened next was the subject of lengthy investigations and conspiracy theories that live on today. The couple did get away. But the driver, it turned out, was drunk.

As the couple sped off, the photographers out front got tipped off about the escape, quickly catching up on their motorcycles. Their driver darted in and out of traffic, wrecking spectacularly inside the Pont de l’Alma tunnel near the Eiffel Tower.

Fayed died instantly. Diana died at the hospital.

Her death startled the world.

An up-and-coming anchor named Brian Williams broke into regular coverage on MSNBC to announce the news to Americans in the early morning hours of Aug. 31.

“I’ve just been handed from the Reuters news service what has been marked ‘bulletin,'” Williams said, speaking slowly. “It says, ‘Princess Diana has died.'”

She was 36.

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The true story behind Princess Diana's iconic yacht photo

All you need to know about the iconic photo of the late princess of wales that went around the globe.

Princess Diana was always a fashion icon , we can never forget her legendary 'revenge' dress , but one of her best-known looks was snapped when she holidayed on the Jonikal yacht with the al-Fayed family, scenes which were immortalised in the fifth and sixth seasons of The Crown .

The holiday that Diana enjoyed, alongside sons Prince William and Prince Harry , would be her last before she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1997. One of the most memorable photos saw the late Princess of Wales sat on the yacht's diving board looking out over the sea.

Even though the photo of Diana in the teal swimsuit is now one of the most poignant photos of the late royal, how much do you know of the story behind it? Read on to find out all you need to know…

Why was Diana on the yacht?

Princess Diana had become friends with the businessman Mohamed al-Fayed, with the pair reportedly meeting a polo match before becoming friends. Following her divorce from the then Prince Charles and the ending of her relationship with heart surgeon Dr. Hasnat Khan, Mohamed invited Diana to join him and his family on a trip to St Tropez, in southern France.

Ahead of the trip, Diana had been in Milan to attend the funeral of fashion designer and friend Gianna Versace, who had been murdered by Andrew Cunanan. The late royal later travelled to Sarajevo, in Bosnia, to highlight the issue of landmines in the country. During her time in the city, she met with people who had been injured by the mines.

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The trip would end up being Diana's first time meeting Dodi al-Fayed, and the filmmaker's then-girlfriend, Kelly Fisher, was allegedly on the trip.

Who took the photo?

On 10 August, paparazzi photos were published in the Sunday Mirror showing Princess Diana and Dodi sharing a kiss, which intensified media presence around the couple and their holiday. Paparazzi photographers began renting dinghies to try and get new photos of the royal, with some even going for prices up to £1million.

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It's ultimately unknown which photographer grabbed the photo of Diana on the side of the yacht, which was published on 24 August, a week before Diana died. The snap saw the Princess in her teal swimsuit sat at the end of the yacht's diving board, with a life ring floating in the water beneath her.

See below for more images of Diana on the Jonikal…

Diana and Dodi

Diana and Dodi grew close on the trip, and in this photo the pair shared an intimate moment as they relaxed in the sun together.

Diana with the al-Fayed family

The late Princess of Wales had been invited on the trip by Mohamed al-Fayed, and she enjoyed the businessman's company during her time onboard.

Diana in blue

Diana favoured the teal swimsuit during her time in St Tropez.

Diana's paparazzi moment

The royal was aware of the media presence, and she light-heartedly teased photographers in this photo, mimicking a pair of binoculars with her hands.

Diana stretches

The mum-of-two also brought this stunning green and blue one-piece with her on the trip, and in this photo she enjoyed some morning stretches on the yacht's deck.

Diana's family moment

Diana didn't go on the holiday alone, and she also enjoyed time with her sons Prince William and Prince Harry, and a young Harry can be seen here with his mum while she spoke to someone on the phone.

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Yacht that Princess Diana spent last summer on with Dodi Al-Fayed sinks to bottom of Mediterranean

Cujo, which made front-page news around the world back in the summer of 1997 when Diana was entertained on board a year after her divorce from Prince Charles, went down in 2500m (8200ft) of water.

Thursday 3 August 2023 17:00, UK

A motor yacht used by Princess Diana and her boyfriend Dodi Al-Fayed on their final summer holiday in the South of France before they died in a Paris car crash has sunk.

The 19m (62ft) Cujo went down 21 miles (35km) off Beaulieu-sur-Mer after sending out a mayday call last Saturday.

The seven people on board the luxury vessel, which was taking on water, were rescued by teams from Antibes before it sank to the bottom of the Mediterranean at a depth of 2500m (8200ft).

They were safely returned to shore.

The area was monitored for pollution as the boat sank with 7,000 litres of diesel in its tanks.

Cujo made front page news around the world back in the summer of 1997 when Al-Fayed entertained Diana onboard, a year after her divorce from Prince Charles, which was finalised in August 1996.

That summer, Diana was also photographed on Sokar, the yacht then owned by al Fayed's billionaire father Mohamed.

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It had previously been named Jonikal.

Cujo was built in Italy in 1972 for businessman John von Neumann who told the Italian Baglietto shipyard that he wanted the world's fastest motor yacht.

She was fitted with two 18-cylinder engines giving her a top speed of 42 knots.

Van Neumann then sold the boat to the son of Saudi businessman and arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi and he sold her on to his cousin, al Fayed.

Cujo was frequently moored off St Tropez, a famous celebrity hangout on the French Riviera, with guests including Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis and Bruce Willis.

Following the death of Diana and Al-Fayed in central Paris on 31 August 1997, Cujo fell into disrepair.

She was decommissioned in 1999, and spent years in storage, before being restored by new owners.

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The Crown: The Sad, Strange Details of Princess Diana’s Last Vacation

Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed are lounging on the sundeck of a reportedly £15 million yacht in The Crown ’s season six episode “Two Photographs” when Dodi’s domineering father telephones an onboard employee with an urgent question.

“Are they sleeping together?” Mohamed Al Fayed demands to know.

It’s an audacious question—but Mohamed really was checking in on the couple hourly during this August 1997 cruise, according to Tom Bower , who wrote an unauthorized biography of the billionaire called Fayed. The late princess was aware that these calls were coming in—so much so that she joked to Dodi, “God is calling,” when she heard a ring, according to Dodi’s spiritual healer, Myriah Daniels, who was onboard. In 2007, during the inquest into the 1997 crash that killed the princess, Dodi, and their driver, Henri Paul, Daniels said that this became one of Diana’s inside jokes with Dodi. “They’d both have a giggle,” she said.

Diana had vacationed with Mohamed, as well as Prince William and Prince Harry, aboard the Jonikal earlier that summer. As depicted in The Crown ’s season six episode “Persona Non Grata,” that first Jonikal vacation featured Jet Skis and a flirtation between Diana and the flotilla of press nearby.

“The young princes didn’t like [the trip] much,” Tina Brown writes in The Palace Papers. “The flash and excess of [Mohamed’s] hospitality—the groaning buffets and the palatial bathrooms—embarrassed William in particular.” Dodi, who was asked by his father to join the trip midway, did not help matters by making the “oddly flamboyant gesture of renting a disco for William and Harry to enjoy privately,” according to royal biographer Sally Bedell Smith in Diana in Search of Herself.

Mohamed was a controversial figure who long craved social acceptance by the British elite, and hoped a relationship between his son and the recently-divorced Diana would seal the deal.

During the summer of 1997, the billionaire ordered Dodi to drop everything—including his model fiancée, Kelly Fisher —and romance the late princess. Speaking about Mohamed, Bedell Smith previously told Vanity Fair, “He was really the puppet master behind Dodi and Diana’s very brief, barely more than a month, romance…. Dodi basically did whatever his father told him to do.”

Diana’s association with Mohamed caused serious backlash in the press. “These days, Diana, you are no longer the Teflon Princess,” warned Andrew Morton , the biographer behind her bridge-burning tell-all, Diana: Her True Story, in The Sun. “You might have the run of a £20 million yacht, but your friends and fans see a woman who is drifting on the sea of life, seriously in danger of becoming shipwrecked.” Referring to Diana’s cat-and-mouse game with the paparazzi during that initial trip, columnist Judith Whelan wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald, “Diana has been erratic before. This time, however, she has done it while hosted by one of the most reviled men in Britain.”

Despite the press outrage over her association with Mohamed, Diana agreed to return to the Jonikal for the intimate trip reimagined in “Two Photographs.” “Alone in August and attracted to [Dodi], [a] sympathetic, unthreatening listener, she accepted the invitation for a second trip alone with Dodi to the Jonikal on 31 July,” wrote Bower in Fayed. “Over the next six days…the two frolicked on the sundecks, inside the sumptuous craft and in the sea.”

Dodi indulged Diana with her favorite meals—“which included carrot juice in the morning, fruit at lunch, and fish in the evening, as well as plenty of Champagne, caviar, and pâté de foie gras,” according to Diana in Search of Herself. The music was Diana’s selection as well: George Michael’s 1996 album, Older, the occasional Frank Sinatra tune, and the soundtrack of The English Patient. “Such a marvelous film,” Diana raved to Dodi’s butler, Rene Delorm, according to Fayed. “And you miss the music when you’re watching.”

Mohamed’s staff was so attentive to Diana that the Jonikal ’s chief stewardess, Deborah Gribble, could remember the tiniest detail, like that some of Diana’s birth control packets were half-used. Speaking at the inquest, she also confirmed that Dodi and Diana “were clearly having a relationship and were a couple.”

Dodi lavished Diana with gifts during their six-week courtship, including a pearl bracelet, a diamond-studded wristwatch, a silver photo frame, and a gold-and-diamond ring. When the Jonikal docked in Sardinia’s Porto Cervo, according to Brown’s The Diana Chronicles, Diana and Dodi went shopping and returned with cashmere sweaters for the princess—one in every color.

Mohamed, meanwhile, was busy behind the scenes calling press. News of the relationship between Diana and Dodi broke the first week of August, less than a month before Diana’s death. The Sun ran the news with the headline “Di’s Secret Hol With Harrods Hunk Dodi,” while Mohamed’s publicist touted the relationship as “the romance of the century.”

But by the end of the trip, according to those who knew Diana, she intended their fling to be just that. The late princess suspected that Dodi might propose to her, according to Brown, but she told a friend that an engagement ring would be “going firmly on the fourth finger of my right hand” should it be presented. As recreated in “Two Pictures,” there was “a chaotic evening ashore in Monte Carlo when Dodi suddenly decided to send for the tender and take the princess for a walk.” Rather than going for a romantic stroll, however, Dodi “got her lost after a long pant up a hill trying to evade the paparazzi,” Brown writes.

It was so embarrassing, she continues, that Trevor Rees-Jones, a bodyguard on Mohamed’s payroll, “began to feel sorry for the princess; he believed she deserved better.”

According to Gribble, Dodi also became impatient with the amount of press attention Diana was receiving.

“The tension was noticeable throughout the trip and increasing as time wore on,” Gribble revealed during the inquest. “By the time we went to Paris, there was real tension. It was incredible. It was all so tense.”

Days before her fatal accident, Diana called her sister from the Jonikal, confiding that any love spell cast on her earlier had been broken. While she did not get into specifics, Sarah McCorquodale later told the court, “I just did not think the relationship had much longer to go.”

During that final trip on the Jonikal, Diana was photographed sitting alone on a diving board in an aqua swimsuit. The image remains so iconic that, 26 years after it was taken, Netflix recreated the visual in its promotional materials for The Crown ’s sixth season.

Contrary to what the photo showed, though, Diana was never really alone. By the end of the cruise, the princess suspected that Mohamed was doing more than periodically checking in with the Jonikal staff. As McCorquodale revealed during the inquest, “She thought the boat was being bugged by Mr. Al Fayed Senior.”

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Inside The Yacht Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed Toured the Mediterranean On

The princess and her paramour vacationed on the yacht shortly before their tragic deaths in 1997.

At the start of The Crown 's sixth season, Prince William and Prince Harry join their mother Princess Diana, for a vacation aboard the yacht of Mohamed Al Fayed . Fans have been anticipating what it means for the show's final season , as Diana's trip aboard the yacht would go on to become a major moment for the princess and her relationship with Dodi Al Fayed —the boyfriend with whom she famously died in a car crash in Paris in 1997.

Just a month before their passing, Diana and Dodi—joined for part of the trip by her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry—traveled the South of France aboard a superyacht. Then named the Jonikal (it has subsequently been called the Sokar , and the Bash ), the yacht was owned by Dodi's father, former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed , when Diana traveled on it. Following the 1997 car crash that led to the couple's deaths, Mohamed attempted to sell the yacht on a number of occasions before ultimately parting with it in 2014.

In 2022, it was announced that the 208-foot yacht, which saw the beloved royal's last vacation, would be going up for sale. According to Boat International , the vessel sold in June of 2023 following a €9 million refit.

The ship, which was first launched in 1990, reportedly has nine staterooms to hold up to 12 guests with amenities including a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, formal dining room, a bar, and office space. Though the ultimate sale price for the vessel has not been revealed, the asking price was reportedly €15,500,000.

Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.

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Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed's iconic love boat is now at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea

• The yacht on which Princess Diana holidayed with Dodi Fayed is now at the bottom of the sea, per The Times .
• The boat, named Cujo, sank after it collided with an unidentified object off the French Riviera.
• Cujo has changed hands multiple times in recent years and was most recently owned by a wealthy Italian family.

The yacht where Princess Diana spent part of her last summer with Dodi Fayed has sunk to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

The boat, named Cujo, sank on July 29 after colliding with an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, The Times reported.

The Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes uploaded a statement onto their Facebook page confirming that they responded to a distress call from a boat that was in trouble about 35 kilometers, or 22 miles, off the coast.

By the time the coast guards arrived at the scene, the yacht was already partially submerged.

"The distressed yacht is already starting to sink from the front and the 7 shipwrecked are just next to it in a life raft," the statement said. "The cabins of the yacht are already flooded, only a few suitcases located in the kitchen and on the deck can be retrieved."

The Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes added that they would remain in the area to monitor pollution because the yacht sank with almost 7,000 liters of diesel in its tanks.

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When Insider reached out to the Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes for direct confirmation of the boat's identity, the organization told Insider "to search via Google."

Cujo made international headlines in 1997 when Princess Diana was photographed onboard with its then-owner Fayed, per Robb Report .

That summer, Princess Diana was also photographed onboard another yacht owned by Fayed's father, the Jonikal — which was subsequently renamed Sokar, per The Times.

Mere weeks later, the two of them died in a car crash in Paris while trying to escape the paparazzi.

Following their deaths, Cujo fell into disrepair and was decommissioned in 1999, per Robb Report. After a few years in storage, Fayed's cousin, Moody Al-Fayed, spent over $1 million restoring the boat before he sold it to a British car collector Simon Kidston for €160,000, or $175,400.

Kidston subsequently sold the boat to its current owner in 2021, he told Robb Report.

"A young member of a prominent Italian business family—he's 30 years old—had seen Cujoin Lavagna, fallen in love with her and asked if she was for sale," Kidston told Robb Report.

Watch: The rise and fall of the cruise industry

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Yacht used by Princess Diana and lover Dodi Fayed on final summer holiday sinks

Seven people on board were rescued following the accident off the coast of france, article bookmarked.

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The world-famous celebrity yacht used by Princess Diana on her final summer holiday in France has sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Cujo, once also a favourite of Hollywood superstars, disappeared below the Mediterranean waves after hitting an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera, on Saturday.

Seven people on board were rescued following the accident, but the boat ended up at a depth of almost 2500m around 18 nautical miles off the coast.

“The skipper of the Cujo issued a Mayday,” said one officer. “His ship was sinking due to a leak.

“Rescue boats were sent from Antibes, and, after making sure everyone was safe, gendarmes detected a significant water leak at the level of the starboard front hull.

“Her owner had activated the pumps and kept the engines running, but this didn’t stop the boat sinking.”

All of those on board, including the Cujo‘s Italian owner, were placed in a rescue boat, and taken back to shore uninjured.

Reports about Cujo - an Indian word that means ‘Unstoppable Force’ - dominated the media in August 1997, when it was owned by Diana’s boyfriend, Dodi Al-Fayed.

The multi-millionaire film producer had spent some £1m refitting the boat, and wooed Diana on board, as the world’s media looked on.

This was shortly before the couple died in a car crash in central Paris caused by their drunk driver.

That summer, Diana was also photographed on Sokar, the yacht then owned by Al-Fayed’s father, retail billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed.

Cujo was built in Italy in 1972 for businessman John von Neumann after he told Italy’s Baglietto shipyard that he wanted the world’s fastest motor yacht.

She was fitted with two 18-cylinder engines that ensured she had a top speed of 42 knots.

Van Neumann then sold the boat to the son of Adnan Khashoggi, the world’s richest arms dealer, and he sold her on to his cousin, Dodi Al-Fayed.

Cujo was frequently moored off St Tropez, the most famous celebrity hotspot on the Riviera, with celebrity guests including Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis and Bruce Willis on board.

Following the death of Princess Diana and Mr Al-Fayed, Cujo fell into disrepair.

She was decommissioned in 1999, and spent years in storage, before being restored by new owners.

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Princess Diana’s Former Yacht That She Vacationed on with Boyfriend Dodi Fayed Sinks in France

All seven passengers were rescued after the superyacht, dubbed Cujo, sank beneath the Mediterranean Sea on July 29

Natalia Senanayake is an Editorial Assistant, Lifestyle at PEOPLE. She covers all things travel and home, from celebrities' luxury mansions to breaking travel news.

Best Image/BACKGRID; Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes

Princess Diana ’s former yacht that she enjoyed her last summer vacation on before her death has sunk off the coast of France, according to The Independent . 

The boat, dubbed Cujo , was frequented by the late princess and her boyfriend at the time, Dodi Fayed , in the summer of 1997 before they both died in a car crash in late August that year. 

All seven passengers on board were rescued in time before the vessel sank below the Mediterranean Sea on Saturday, July 29. An officer said that the “ship was sinking due to a leak” after it allegedly hit an unidentified object on the French Riviera, The Independent reports. 

Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes

Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes, a branch of the French military, released a statement addressing the incident on their official Facebook page . They state the Antibes Nautical Brigade first responded to a distress call at 12:30 p.m. local time for a yacht located 35 kilometers off the coast of Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France. 

When they arrived at the scene 45 minutes later, the ship was already sinking and the cabins had begun to flood. The seven passengers were already transferred to a life raft and examined for injuries before being taken back to shore. 

Princess Diana and Fayed enjoyed spending time together aboard the 20-meter superyacht that first launched in 1972, especially around the Italian Riviera, according to Boat International . 

The pair first met at a polo match in 1986 in which Fayed was playing against Diana’s then-husband, Prince Charles . Diana and Fayed didn’t connect romantically until nearly 10 years later when Fayed’s father, Mohamed al Fayed, invited her and her two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry , to vacation at their villa in St. Tropez, France.  

Before Diana’s romance with the film producer began to develop, the Prince and Princess of Wales had finalized their divorce in August 1996. Diana announced that she agreed to her husband's request for divorce earlier that year in February. 

A representative of the princess released a statement at the time: "The Princess of Wales has agreed to Prince Charles's request for a divorce. The Princess will continue to be involved in all decisions relating to the children and will remain at Kensington Palace with offices in St. James's Palace . The Princess of Wales will retain the title and be known as Diana, Princess of Wales."

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Diana died at the age of 36 after going into cardiac arrest from internal injuries she sustained during a high-speed car crash in Paris, France . Dodi and the car’s driver, Henri Paul, were killed instantly in the fatal accident. 

Reports indicate the car was traveling at 121 mph in a narrow tunnel along the Seine River in an effort to escape paparazzi tailing them on motorcycles. It was also reported that Paul was legally drunk when the crash occurred.

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See Inside the Superyacht Princess Diana Shared With Dodi Fayed

Since her untimely death in August of 1997, Princess Diana’s last summer spent with Dodi Al-Fayed has been described in various ways: a passionate love affair, a fake publicity stunt, a temporary fling, a rouse to infuriate another suiter, or the beginning of a lifelong commitment. Although the stories change, the setting remains: a summer tour through the Mediterranean aboard a multi-million dollar superyacht. Later this year, nearly 25 years to the day, the 208-foot vessel will launch for sale again. 

The yacht is full of glossy and dark wood paneling. 

Originally named Jonikal , then Sokar , and most recently Bash , the luxury vessel was first owned by Mohamed Al-Fayed, former owner of Harrods and father of Dodi Al-Fayed. During the fateful summer, Al-Fayed hosted Princess Di and her two sons aboard the Jonikal . After the couple’s tragic death, Mohamed Al-Fayed attempted to sell the yacht numerous times before it was finally bought in 2014. It was most recently purchased by Bassim Haidar in June of 2021, who is selling it just over a year later as he reportedly has plans to upgrade to a larger vessel. “She is in the yard being refitted, and will be launched for sale in September,” said John Wood, director at Seawood Yachts. 

Coffered ceilings add a dramatic, yet timeless feel. 

Bash , as the yacht is currently named, was designed by navel architect Vincenzo Ruggiero in the 1980s and built by the superyacht building firm Codecasa before launching in 1990. The vessel can hold up to 18 people across nine staterooms in addition to rooms for 26 crew members. Among many notable features, Bash includes a jacuzzi, swim platform, sun deck, a formal dining room, main saloon, a bar, and office space. Full of dark wood paneling and coffered ceilings, the interiors are reminiscent of the Arts and Crafts style of the early 1900s. 

The vessel includes nine staterooms in addition to plenty of space for the crew. 

Powered by Wärtsilä engines, the yacht has a cruising speed of 15 knots and top speeds of 20 knots. Even though an exact price hasn’t been advertised just yet, the last time the boat was sold, it was listed for $10,000,000. 

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Catching Cujo: How I accidentally bought Dodi Al Fayed’s old yacht at auction

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This is the incredible story of Cujo, the 21m Baglietto once owned by Dodi Al-Fayed, who hosted Princess Diana on board during the fateful summer of 1997...

Simon Kidston never intended to buy a boat. He had distant yet fond memories of travelling through the French canals on his father’s Fairey Swordsman in the 1970s and dreamed of keeping a Riva Aquarama on Lake Geneva, but despite this nagging desire it never came to fruition.

So how did a man with a love of classic cars end up “accidentally” buying one of the most famous superyachts ever built for an absolute song?

To understand this you have to go back 15 years to a time when Simon left auctioneers Bonhams to start his own business buying, selling and restoring classic cars. Cars are all he has ever known career-wise but they are also a personal passion.

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That’s why he specialises in classic cars with a story behind them and a background that holds a particular allure: “We often help clients find family cars that they would like to buy back – generally rare and special ones,” he says.

“It’s like those people who save waif and stray dogs. I see a car that is neglected, forlorn and down at heel – a rough diamond – and I love bringing it back to life.”

He went on his own personal journey to find a family gem, a 1938 Bugatti built for his father that he tracked down and acquired 50 years after he had sold it.

He adds, “I believe that cars like this are there to be used and leaving them in a garage just to polish them is to not understand them fully.”

Read the full story of how Simon Kidston bought Cujo in the May issue of MBY, out April 1.

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Princess Diana’s Yacht Adventures: The Famous Boats She and Dodi Fayed Vacationed On

In the summer of 1997, Dodi Fayed and Princess Diana’s yacht adventures were the infatuation of the tabloids, paparazzi, and public like no other. The pair were captured sailing around the Mediterranean in July, first with both of their families, then again, just them, at the end of the month, spurring nonstop controversy and speculation. Weeks later the couple was killed in a tragic car accident, prompting even greater interest in the brief but impactful relationship. Nearly 30 years later, understanding just what happened on the high seas remains a notable point of interest for many invested in the Royal Family.

The momentous vacation was recreated in season six of Netflix’s The Crown and recounted in Prince Harry’s 2023 memoir, Spare . While conversations about the trip often recount what the couple did – and what Diana wore – it’s worth revisiting the stunning vessels where all the escapades took place. Below, AD surveys the two superyachts Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed used during their prominent summer together.

Jonikal, now known as Isabell Princess of the Sea

The sensationalised couple most famously spent time on Jonikal , a 208-foot superyacht. At the time, Mohamed Al-Fayed, Dodi’s father, owned the boat. Reportedly, he originally invited Diana to the yacht in an attempt to play matchmaker between his son and Prince William 's mother, the People’s Princess.

Princess Diana sunbathes on an orange couch aboard Jonikal .

Those who watch The Crown will be unsurprised to learn that the interiors of Jonikal , which has since been renamed Isabell Princess Of The Sea by a new owner, are just as lavish as those depicted in the look-alike on the show. Inside, the ship boasts nine staterooms, a formal dining room, bar, office space, swim platform, sun deck, and Jacuzzi. Designed by navel architect Vincenzo Ruggiero in the 1980s, coffered ceilings and dark wood paneling draw inspiration from the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s.

In his memoir, Prince Harry remembers his experience on the yacht as idyllic. “There was much laughter, horseplay, the norm whenever Mummy and Willy and I were together, though even more so on that holiday,” he writes. “Everything about that trip to St. Tropez was heaven. The weather was sublime, the food was tasty, Mummy was smiling.”

The First Hydrogen-Powered Superyacht Signals A Greener Future for Luxury Travel

After the original trip with her children, Princess Diana’s yacht adventures on the Jonikal continued as she returned to the boat a second time with just the younger Fayed. According to Vanity Fair , Fayed catered to all of Di’s preferences, even letting her pick the music that played. Reportedly, she opted for tunes by George Michael, Frank Sinatra, and the English Patient soundtrack.

A now famous image of Princess Diana on Jonikal ’s passarelle

Nearby, a brigade of press boats captured a number of photos of Princess Diana on the yacht, formally immortalising the vessel. Most famously, Princess Diana was captured sitting alone on the vessel’s passerelle in a now iconic image. According to Boat International , the yacht most recently sold in 2023.

As Robb Report describes it, Cujo, a 65-foot military-style superyacht was once the most famous in the world thanks to her high-profile passengers. In 1997, Fayed reportedly used this smaller vessel to woo the princess.

Princess Diana and Prince William on Dodi Fayed’s yacht

The impressive yacht was originally launched in 1972, commissioned by its first owner John von Neumann. According to Robb Report, Von Neumann hired Italian shipyard Baglietto to build him a boat that was “faster than any other motoryacht on the water.” During its maiden voyage, Cujo had largely achieved this goal thanks to its twin 54-liter V-18 turbo diesel engines, which provided 2,700 horsepower and allowed it to easily hit 46 miles per hour. Von Neumann eventually sold the boat to arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, who later passed the boat to Dodi Fayed, his nephew.

Cujo was already halfway underwater when rescuers arrived.

The boat sank quickly after the distress call was made.

However, the boat’s story came to a dramatic end last summer, when it sunk off the coast of France, as reported by The Independent . According to a Facebook post from the Gendarmerie des Alpes-Maritimes, a division of the French military, passengers issued a distress call at around 12:30 local time on July 29, 2023. A little under an hour later, a rescue boat arrived, finding the vessel’s bow already partially submerged. “The cabins of the yacht were already flooded, and only a few suitcases located in the kitchen and on the deck could be retrieved by the gendarmes,” reads the statement. The seven passengers who were on board had already evacuated and were safely on a nearby lifeboat. Rescuers and passengers then quickly left the area, as the boat sank 2,500 feet to the ocean’s floor. The cause of the accident was not shared; however, according to Boat International , sources claimed that the ship hit an unknown object floating near the center of the hull.

At one point, the vessel was among the fastest in the world.

Though Princess Diana was among the most notable guests onboard, other high-profile passengers hosted by Fayed included Clint Eastwood, Tony Curtis, Bruce Willis, and Brooke Shields. Following the passing of Di and Fayed, Cujo fell into disrepair and decommissioned in 1999. After many years in storage, Fayed’s cousin Moody Al-Fayed purchased the vessel and brought it back to life. He later sold the boat to Simon Kidston, a British car collector and restorer and the last-reported owner of the vessel.

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Incredible 80ft superyacht Cujo used by Princess Diana in her final summer with Dodi Fayed sinks after crash in Med

• Juliana Cruz Lima
• Published : 10:37, 3 Aug 2023
• Updated : 13:36, 3 Aug 2023

THE yacht used by Princess Diana during her last summer has sunk in the Mediterranean.

Cujo, which once belonged to Dodi Al-Fayed , was reportedly holed after hitting an unidentified object off Beaulieu-sur-Mer, on the French Riviera .

All seven passengers were rescued uninjured and safely evacuated on a life raft.

But the 80ft boat ended up at a depth of at least 2,430 metres despite salvage attempts.

Cujo's latest owner was at the helm when the accident happened on July 29.

The Italian , who owns a home in the French Riviera, tried and failed to pump out the water, local media reports.

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A second attempt was made by a tugboat dispatched to the scene, to no avail.

Emergency services were called at around 12.30pm, and 45 minutes later, a rescue boat arrived at the scene to find the yacht's bow partially submerged with some cabins already flooded.

The superyacht hit the headlines in the summer of 1997, when the Princess of Wales was photographed aboard with Al-Fayed.

Weeks later, on August 31, the pair died in a crash in Paris when their car hit a pillar in the Alma tunnel while fleeing paparazzi.

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After their death, Cujo fell into disrepair before it was restored by a member of the late owner’s family at a cost of €800,000 (£689,000).

The motor yacht had been moored in the port of Beaulieu-sur-Mer but was no longer in pristine condition.

“It had regular maintenance problems,” local paper Nice Matin reported.

Le Figaro also reported it had had 7,000 litres of fuel on board, but added that there was little risk of significant pollution.

In 2020, the superyacht was auctioned and bought by a wealthy Italian family for £171,000.

Cujo was built in Italy in 1972 for John von Neumann, a businessman who had made a fortune selling Porsche and Volkswagen cars in the US .

Von Neumann told Italy’s Baglietto yard that he wanted the world’s fastest yacht, which was achieved with two diesel turbo engines delivering a top speed of 40 knots.

The businessman kept it for a few years before selling it to the son of Adnan Khashoggi, the arms dealer said in the 1980s to be the world’s richest man. He in turn sold it to Al-Fayed, his cousin.

In the 1990s, Cujo became a star-studded yacht, as Al-Fayed invited the likes of Brooke Shields, Clint Eastwood , Tony Curtis and Bruce Willis on board.

• Princess Diana

Princess Diana & Dodi Al-Fayed's Love Yacht 'Cujo' Meets Grim Fate Nearly 26 Years After Their Deaths

Princess Diana's relationship with Dodi Al-Fayed has always been met with a great deal of interest and curiosity from royal watchers around the globe. After  Diana's divorce from then-Prince Charles , she and Al-Fayed began dating in 1997, the year they both tragically died. 

Diana and Al-Fayed would spend the summer months together, vacationing in the South of France just days before a car crash in Paris would claim their lives. According to the Daily Mail , the couple spent time on Dodi's luxury yacht named "Cujo." The boat ended up being a playground for the lovers, who were often photographed by paparazzi as they continued getting to know one another. 

Flash forward to 2023, and Cujo is no more. The yacht sunk to the bottom of the ocean on the French Riviera after hitting an object,  The Times of London reports. The incident was considered an emergency and a rescue for the seven people onboard ensued.

All 7 people on 'Cujo' were rescued

On July 29, a call was made by the boat's skipper about Cujo taking on water, local police said (via the Daily Mail). Thankfully, all seven people on board were rescued safely and were not harmed, despite the scary situation. Now, reports indicate that the boat is almost 8,000 feet below the surface of the ocean, resting in the Mediterranean Sea just about 18 miles off the coast of Nice, France. 

The yacht was built in Italy in 1972. Over the years, many celebrity guests, such as Clint Eastwood and Bruce Willis, have spent time on Cujo on the French Riviera.

And if you're wondering how Dodi Al-Fayed may have been able to afford such a pricey toy, his father Mohamed Al-Fayed is a billionaire who once owned Harrods Department Store. Dodi also worked as an executive producer on a number of movies during his time. He and Princess Diana both loved being on the ocean and spent much time onboard Cujo and Al-Fayed's father's yacht, "Jonikal." Now, however, one of the only remaining pieces of their love story has been lost to the depths. 

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Dodi Fayed's yacht, where he courted Princess Diana before their untimely deaths, sells for just £171,000 - with experts suggesting 'low' price could indicate memory of the royal is fading

• Yacht where Dodi Fayed and Lady Diana spent final summer has been auctioned
• The pair were photographed relaxing on deck on board 'Cujo' in St Tropez in July 1997 before the couple were killed in a car crash in Paris on 31st August  
• The boat went for a bid of £171,000, a price which many deemed surprisingly low

By Claire Toureille For Mailonline

Published: 07:10 EDT, 24 May 2020 | Updated: 07:25 EDT, 24 May 2020

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The glamorous yacht where Dodi Fayed and Princess Diana spent their final holiday together has been sold at auction. 

Dodi and Diana were photographed enjoying each other's company on the boat, named 'Cujo', in July 1997, just weeks before their deaths in a Paris car crash on August 31st the same year.

Last week, the yacht was sold for £171,000, with some observers telling The Sunday Express  that the bid was surprisingly low, sparking fears that the memory of Diana was 'fading'. 

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The Cujo (pictured) Dodi Fayed's former yacht, has been auctioned for £171,000. In the summer of 1997, before their untimely deaths, Dodi and Princess Diana enjoyed holidays on the vessel in St Tropez, France

Diana walking along the deck on the Cujo, Dodi's yacht in July 1997. The ageing vessel was sold during a recent auction for £171,000

Final days: A snap of Diana and Dodi Fayed enjoying each other's company on his father's yacht Jonikal (now called the Sokar) in St Tropez in the summer of 1997 

Royal author Margaret Holder, who penned Diana: The Caring Princess, a look at the Princess of Wales' life published in 1999, said she felt it was: 'a shame that this historic boat didn't attract a higher bid as a remarkable souvenir of the last days of Diana's life.'

She added she felt it was surprising that royal fans did not pay more for the historical memorabilia. 

'Not long ago one could have expected a bidding war between wealthy Diana fans,' she said. 

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'I hope this isn't a sign that memories of her unique allure are fading," she added. 

Diana was famously photographed kissing Dodi on the vessel's deck and sunbathing on his father's yacht's diving board that same summer. 

The boat was used by Dodi as the venue for lavish parties in the South of France, mainly in St Tropez. 

In the summer of 1997, the millionaire son of former Harrods owner Mohammed Al-Fayed entertained the former Princess of Wales on the yacht.  

The couple were photographed all summer long in 1997, a year after Diana's divorce from Prince Charles, which was finalised in August 1996 (pictured on a speedboat in St Tropez in July 1997)

The pair were photographed kissing and embracing on the deck almost a year after Diana and Prince Charles's divorce was agreed upon. Diana, then 36, was spotted strutting on the deck, making the most of the Mediterranean sun and her new romance. 

The couple also spent most of their time of Dodi's father Mohammed's super yacht the Jonikal (now known as the Sokar) that same summer.

A snap of the former royal gazing into the distance from the yacht's diving board was one of the last pictures ever taken of Diana. 

The couple died in a tragic car accident which shook the world on August 31 1997 in Paris, which killed their driver, Henri Paul as well. 

The yacht was built in 1972 by Baglietto Shipyard for entrepreneur and playboy  John Von Neumann,. It was intended to be one of the fastest yachts around at the time. 

After a few years, John Von Neumann sold the vessel to Mohammed Kashoggi, who later sold it to his cousin: Dodi Fayed. 

Following Dodi and Diana's death, the ship was decked for years before Moody Fayed, Dodi's cousin, bought it from the family and refurbished it for £800,000 in 2016.  

Share or comment on this article: Dodi Fayed's superyacht where he entertained Diana goes on sale for £171,000

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Dudinka icebreaker current location is at North Russia (coordinates 68.97137 N / 33.05721 E) cruising en route to Murmansk. The AIS position was reported 27 minutes ago.

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The series consisted of two such icebreakers, Apu and Varma, launched earlier in 1968. They were both consequently sold to Latvia in 1994. Another three icebreakers with similar technical parameters are Tarmo (1963, Estonia-flagged), Tor (1964, Russia-flagged) and Njord (1969, Canada-flagged, later renamed to Polar Star).

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1953: Uprising at the Norilisk Labour Camp

Account of a mass strike by inmates at the Norilag Gulag against executions and enforced labour.

Norillag prisoners strike for better conditions (Norilsk uprising), 1953 Goals: The prisoners' demands included a review of all prison sentences; an end to summary executions; the shortening of the working day from twelve to eight hours; the right to correspond with their families; the transfer of disabled prisoners; and the removal of the locks on the barracks, the bars on the windows, and the identification numbers on prison uniforms.

The Norillag was a gulag labor camp, located in Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, a town in the Taimyr Peninsula on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, close to the mouth of the Enisei River. Inmates of the Norillag worked 12-hour days, in temperatures as low as negative 50 degrees Celsius during the winter. They worked in mines, brickyards, cement plants, and in the base camps, as well as on road and railroad construction. Sources estimate that the Norilsk camps held between 25,000 and 35,000 inmates at the time of the Norilsk uprising in 1953, the majority of whom were political prisoners.

The death of Joseph Stalin on 5 March 1953 raised hopes of amnesty among the prisoners, but their hopes were soon dashed when authorities announced that the amnesty would only apply to criminal prisoners, and not to political prisoners.

Amidst an atmosphere of frustrated expectations, the Norilsk uprising began in Camp No. 5 on 26 May 1953, one day after a perimeter guard shot at five political prisoners and killed two. The prisoners in Camp No. 5 spread news of the violence to other compounds via a pre-established semaphore communications system using flags.

When the news reached Camp No. 4, a prisoner named Yevgeny Griciak responded by beginning a strike in his camp. When he failed to convince the inmates to put down their tools with his words, Griciak “noticed then that the rhythm of the work was set by the sound of the air hammers. As long as the hammers kept going, the inmates would work, so I shut the compressors off. The hammers stopped and everyone quit working.” When one of the authorities ordered the 5,000 prisoners to return to their work, the inmates refused. The result was a three-day siege at the construction site. On the inmates’ third day without food or water, they painted a large sign with the words, “We Are Being Killed and Starved,” and hung the sign on a building to make it visible to the townspeople of Norilsk. Shortly afterward, the authorities brought in food and water, and the inmates voted to go back to the barracks. Nevertheless, despite their return to the barracks, the inmates continued with their strike the next day.

By 5 June 1953, the Norillag prisoners had initiated strikes in six of the camps, with a total of 16,379 prisoners on strike. One source reports that inmates joined together as a human wall to block camp administrators from the prisoners’ quarters. Another source reports that inmates raised black flags over their barracks as a symbol of their revolt, while local trains carried strike slogans.

As the camp authorities deliberated, the prisoners organized themselves. They set up committees to regulate the duties of strikers and elected leaders: one leader for each barrack. Representatives on the committees included Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians, although Ukrainians were the most well-represented. Among the leaders of the uprising were Yevhen Hyrtsyak, Danylo Shumuk, Alida Dauge, and Asti Tofri. Dauge and Tofri were two of the eight women leaders in the revolt.

The first major demand of the prisoners was to have the opportunity to negotiate with representatives from Moscow instead of with local authorities. The scholar William D. Pederson writes that “[t]his demand, which was repeated during the Vorkuta and Kingir uprisings, seems to have grown out of the display of power that Communist prisoners of war exerted on the truce negotiations in the Korean War” (see “Vorkuta prisoners strike for improved conditions, Russia, 1953”).

In Camp No. 3, prisoners led by a man named Nikolaitchuk distributed hundreds of leaflets to the townspeople of Norilsk, located a mile and a half away, to publicize the situation in the camp. The inmates printed the leaflets with ink from the administrative office and letter blocks that they cut out of rocks and pieces of cement using their work tools. The inmates then delivered the leaflets to city dwellers by crafting kites from paper lying around, tying the leaflets to the kites with a cord, and setting the cords on fire as they released the kites into the air. As the kites flew over Norilsk, the cords burnt to an end, causing the leaflets to fall from the sky into the city. Griciak said that that word of the revolt finally reached the authorities in Moscow partly because of this action.

On 6 June 1953, a special commission arrived from Moscow to meet with the prisoners and discuss their demands. Colonel Mikhail Kuznyetsov (also spelled Kuznetsov, Kusnetov), the chief of the prison administration of the Soviet Union’s interior ministry (MVD) led the commission, whose task was to end the prisoners’ strike at any cost. Other members of the commission included Lieutenant-General Seryodkin, the commander of prison convoy guard forces of the MVD, and Comrade Kiselyov, a representative of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the USSR.

A secret prisoners’ committee submitted a list of demands to the commission. The prisoners' demands included a review of all prison sentences; an end to summary executions; the shortening of workdays from twelve to eight hours; the right to correspond with their families; the transfer of disabled prisoners; the removal of locks on the barracks and bars on the windows; and the removal of identification numbers from prison uniforms. Hyrtsyak was among the inmates who presented the demands to the commission. Kuznyetsov told the prisoners that a few of their demands would be met immediately, while the others would be reviewed in Moscow. In the meantime, the prisoners were to go back to work, which they did.

Ten days after the negotiations ended, the prisoners re-initiated their strike. Reports vary as to whether the strikes were triggered by the mass arrest of the first strike’s leaders under Kusnyetsov’s orders, or by the fact that camp authorities had begun to lock the doors of the prisoners’ barracks.

The inmates in Camp No. 6, the women’s compound, also participated in the strike. On 7 July 1953, when the women inmates had not worked for a month and been on hunger strike for a week, camp authorities installed machine guns on the watchtowers. 3,000 women prisoners, in turn, emerged from their barracks and started to dig graves for themselves to demonstrate their contempt for the authorities. At that point, the authorities began to attack them with jets of hot water, bricks, and truncheons. The women fled into the tundra, where they met more troops.

The Norilsk uprising ended on 4 August 1953. While one source reports that MVD troops encircled all six camps of Norillag at the beginning of August, opened fire, and thereby terminated the revolt through bloody suppression, other sources suggest that the strikes in most of the camps had already ended by the time that the troops arrived. One source, for example, writes that the strikes in Camps No. 4 and 5 ended on 4 July, when guards with machine guns and automatic rifles killed 27 prisoners. These sources say that the military repression on 4 August was directed toward Camp No. 3, where the strikers had held out the longest. While the official body count of the confrontation was four, unofficial body counts were as high as 150.

After the suppression of the uprising, authorities sent the most active leaders of the protests to prisons and punishment camps. Meanwhile, the administration put down additional attempts to strike through “combing,” a practice in which armed guards forced groups of 50 to 60 prisoners to the taiga, separated out the inmates whom they knew to be active strikers, and isolated them.

Few spoke of what had transpired for fear of punishment. “The men had been warned that any talk of the revolt, or any attempt to stir up any new trouble, meant immediate transfer to a penal camp and perhaps a stiffer sentence,” wrote Walter Ciszek, who served as a priest in Camp No. 5.

In spite of the uprising’s violent end, the authorities granted many of the prisoners’ demands, such as the shortening of their workday from twelve to eight hours; the right to correspond with their family and receive packages; the removal of bars from their windows; and the removal of numbers from their uniforms. Because of these gains, along with the fact that a government commission had arrived from Moscow as requested, the prisoners considered their protest to have ended in victory.

The Norilsk uprising was one of the first major revolts of the inmate movement that emerged within the Soviet labor camp system between 1952 and 1954. Together with the 1953 revolt in Vorkuta, it marked what L. Latkovskis describes as “the beginning of the end of the Gulag.”

Research Notes Influences: The display of power that Communist prisoners of war exercised on the truce negotiations in the Korean War appear to have inspired the Norillag prisoners' demand to negotiate with representatives from Moscow instead of with local authorities.

Sources: Caputo, Philip. 1977. "Tempo: Courage haunts hero of a Soviet prison mutiny." Chicago Tribune (1963-Current File), March 16, (https://proxy.swarthmore.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/171494532?accountid=14194). Coynash, Halya. 2017. “In Memoriam: Yevhen Hrytsyak, Leader of the Norilsk Uprising.” Human Rights in Ukraine. Website of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Retrieved February 18, 2019 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190218030553/http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1494809470). Derevianyi, Ihor. 2013. “The Virus of Rebellion.” The Ukrainian Week. Retrieved February 18, 2019 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190218030426/https://ukrainianweek.com/History/82161). Fedynsky, Andrew. 2003. "PERSPECTIVES: "Enemy of the People"." Ukrainian Weekly, March 2, (https://proxy.swarthmore.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/367721175?accountid=14194). Latkovskis, L. 2005. “II. Baltic Prisoners of the Gulag Revolts of 1953.” Lithuanus: Lithuanian Quarterly Journal of Arts and Sciences 51(4). Retrieved February 18, 2019 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190218031803/http://www.lituanus.org/2005/05_4_1Latkovskis.htm) Meek, James. 1994. "Stalin's Legacy Lives on in City that Slaves Built." The Guardian (1959-2003), Dec 29, (https://proxy.swarthmore.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/187650276?accountid=14194). Pederson, William D. 1981. “Norilsk Uprising of 1953” edited by J. L. Wieczynski. The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History 25:52–54. Rotenberg, Olga. 2003. “Former Gulag Inmates in Russia Mark Norilsk Uprising.” Agence France Presse, September 23. (https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:49KX-GSD0-00GS-K499-00000-00&context=1516831).

Name of researcher, and date dd/mm/yyyy: Sacha Lin, 17/02/2019

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