After several changes of ownership and name, as of 2024[update] she was moored in Stockton, California, United States, and was undergoing restoration until May 22 when she began to take on water and sink.

Her cruising speed of 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph) meant that the 90 nautical miles (170 km; 100 mi) trip from Hamburg to Heligoland would take 5 hours.

Her replacement launched in 1962 made 21.5 knots (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph), meaning that day trippers now could spend up to two hours more on the island holding the same departure times.

She was renamed Delos and refitted as one of the first luxury Aegean cruise ships, with the addition of a swimming pool and air conditioning in all cabins.

[4] After repossession by a Seattle bank in Vancouver, she was sold in 1982 to Pan Aleutian Seafoods as a factory ship for crab, and in 1984 laid up again, in Tacoma.

Willson had her towed to Rio Vista, where restoration work began, and then a year later, in August 2010, renamed Aurora, to Pier 38 in San Francisco, with plans to eventually open her as a tourist attraction.

[3][7][2] The following year, a Port of San Francisco wharfinger gave him three days' notice to move Aurora because Pier 38 was to be shut down due to structural and electrical issues.

[4][8] Aurora was ultimately towed from San Francisco back to the delta in 2012 and moored at a marina in Little Potato Slough, approximately 15 miles from Stockton.