Wavekrest

The Wavekrest was a fictional ship owned by Milton Krest. Initially envisioned as a luxury yacht, the vessel first appeared in the Ian Fleming short story The Hildebrand Rarity and was later re-imagined as a marine research vessel in the 1989 James Bond film Licence to Kill, along with John Gardner's accompanying novelization.

History[]

The Hildebrand Rarity (short story)[]

In Fleming's short story, The Hildebrand Rarity, the Wavekrest is described as "a real ship, built to cruise the world and not just the Florida Keys". It was, however, not beautiful – Bond notes that the breadth of beam and cluttered superstructure stunted her lines. Weighing nearly two hundred tons and at one hundred feet long, the ship was luxurious by the standards of the 1950s; air-conditioned throughout and containing wall-to-wall carpeting an inch deep. Its millionaire owner, Milton Krest, even possessed a big transistor gramophone on gimbals so the waves wouldn't jerk the needle.

Licence to Kill (film)[]

For the 1989 film Licence to Kill, the Wavekrest was re-imagined as a marine research vessel owned by (the now) businessman and drug-smuggler, Milton Krest. At 142.33 ft (43.38 m) long^[1], the ship contained a luxurious stateroom and various pieces of oceanographic research equipment used primarily in the smuggling of cocaine. In the lower hull of the Wavekrest was a large diving room, containing a hyperbaric chamber used to treat or prevent decompression sickness, racks of equipment, and a large moon pool for lowering Krest's unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), the Sentinel, into the ocean. On a quest for revenge against drug lord Franz Sanchez and his associates, James Bond boards the ship and foils the kingpin's latest drug shipment, stealing five million dollars in the process. He later returns to the Wavekrest and frames Krest by placing the money into the craft's hyperbaric chamber. Discovering the money, a furious Sanchez traps Krest in the chamber and then rapidly depressurizes it with an axe, killing him gruesomely.

Gadgets[]

The vessel's cinematic counterpart came equipped with numerous pieces of equipment which were not included in the short story The Hildebrand Rarity, including:

	Underwater Hatch — The vessel is equipped with a concealed opening on the underside of its hull, below the waterline, accessed via a moon pool. The hatch allows divers and equipment to be covertly deployed from the ship.
	Sentinel — An unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV), sometimes known as an underwater drone, the Sentinel is controlled by a remote human operator on-board the Wavekrest. Ostensibly for oceanographic research, the equipment is used to transfer cocaine and money in its sealed compartments.
	Recompression Chamber — A hyperbaric chamber used to treat or prevent decompression sickness; the equipment is later used as a brutal method of execution by Sanchez.

Behind the Scenes[]

Filmed in 1988, the name of the ship that portrayed Milton Krest's research vessel in Licence to Kill was the "J.W. Powell", previously named "State Point" (1984) and "Polaris" (2001)^[2]^[3], which was constructed by the American Marine Corporation, New Orleans in 1964. Previous owners, TDI-Brooks International, noted that "extreme cinematographic liberty" was taken in depicting the interior accommodations of the vessel, but the Powell is clearly recognizable in outboard profile and scenes shot in the bridge.^[4] The ship was acquired by TDI-Brooks in June 2000, and was operated primarily in Africa, the Caribbean, South America and the Gulf of Mexico.^[4] As of 2017, the vessel is owned by F&F Marine of Lynnfield, Massachusetts.^[2]