Alucia the 56 metre superyacht equipped to function as a research vessel has been taken into custody by Federal Marshalls.
Alucia which carries two submersibles was working for the Discovery Channel who were with the Japanese Government trying to film the somewhat elusive Giant Squid in the deep waters of the Pacific.
The yacht is no stranger to the headlines she was once famously chartered by the Hollywood director Jim Cameron to discover the remains of Titanic. Later she acted as the mother ship to the Woods Hole scientific expedition that found wreckage the Air France flight lost in the Atlantic.
The super yacht was arrested in the port of Piti on the Pacific Island of Guam. According to reports in Pacific Daily News a lawsuit was filed in the District Court of Guam yesterday, prompting a judge to order the ship held in port.
The alleged dispute concerns repair and maintenance works made to the yacht during a recent stay in Seattle.
Originally built in 1974 by the Auroux yard in 1974, she was conceived and served as the support ship for the French research submersible Nautile.
She was rebuilt as Alucia and gained a new submersible hangar, a sundeck and a helicopter pad.
In addition to her deep-diving manned submersibles she is fitted with:
- Decompression chamber
- Mixed-gas dive support system
- Sonar
- Multiple tenders.
On the market for US$38 million, she was sold last year by Stuart Larsen of Fraser Yachts who described her as “one of the most sophisticated sub-sea exploration platforms ever built.
The yacht has a range of 10,000 nautical miles at 11 knots.