USS Vixen (PG-53)

USS "Vixen" PG-53 was originally built in Kiel, Germany in 1929 as the "Orion" for millionaire Julius Forstmann, an German-American wool manufacturer based in Passaic, New Jersey, as the world's largest private yacht. She was bought by the United States Navy and converted at the Sullivan Dry Dock in Brooklyn into the gunboat USS "Vixen". She was decommissioned in 1947 and returned to her original name, and operated as a cruise ship in the Panama region.

In 1965 she was saved from the scrap yard by Epirotiki Lines of Greece. She was taken to Pireus in Greece where she was rebuilt from the hull upwards and turned into the "Argonaut", a luxury cruise ship under charter to Raymond Whitcombe, touring, amongst others, places such as the Mediterranean, Caribbean, and the Norwegian Fjords. In 1995 she was sold to Memnon Tours of Cairo, Egypt, and renamed "Regina Maris", operating a seven-night cruise in the Red Sea, and later in 2001, the Mediterranean, under charter to Phoenix-Riesen of Germany.

She was laid up in Alexandria, Egypt, from late 2001 until 2004 when she was sold and taken to Greece to be used as a floating hotel during the 2004 Olympics. She was sold for scrap once the Olympics were over, and taken to Turkey where she was broken up in 2005.

[http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/09053.htm http://www.navsource.org/]