Iconic floating restaurant capsizes at sea
HONG KONG — Hong Kong’s iconic Jumbo Floating Restaurant has capsized in the South China Sea less than a week after it was towed away from the city, its parent company said Monday.
The restaurant encountered “adverse conditions” on Saturday as it was passing the Paracel Islands, in the South China Sea, and water entered the vessel and it began to tip, according to Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises Ltd.
The company said no one was injured, but that efforts to save the vessel failed and it capsized on Sunday.
“As the water depth at the scene is over 1,000 meters, (it makes it) extremely difficult to carry out salvage works,” it said in a statement. The company “is very saddened by this accident.”
The Jumbo Floating Restaurant, almost 260 feet in length, had been a landmark in Hong Kong for over four decades, serving Cantonese cuisine to over 3 million guests including Queen Elizabeth II, actor Tom Cruise and businessman Richard Branson. Generations of Hong Kongers celebrated weddings and cut business deals there over such fare as crispy pork belly and wok-baked mud crab.
The restaurant was also featured in the 1974 James Bond film “The Man with the Golden Gun” and several local blockbusters.
In “Contagion,” a 2011 thriller about a global pandemic, a pivotal scene was shot at the restaurant: Gwyneth Paltrow’s character becomes the pandemic’s first victim by contracting a deadly virus from a chef.
For many people in the former British colony, the restaurant symbolized a period of local history more optimistic than the present.
It closed in 2020 due to the pandemic and laid off all its staff. Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises said the restaurant became a financial burden to its shareholders, with millions spent on its inspection and maintenance even though it was not in operation.
The restaurant was towed away last Tuesday. The company said it planned to move it to a lower-cost site where maintenance and storage could be carried out.
It said that prior to its departure, the vessel had been thoroughly inspected by marine engineers and hoardings were installed, and all relevant approvals were obtained.
In a statement, the company said that Jumbo “began to tip” Sunday as it was passing the Paracel Islands, a chain of disputed islands in the South China Sea where China, Vietnam and Taiwan lay territorial claims.
It said the accident occurred in an area where the water depth is over 3,280 feet, “making it extremely difficult to carry out salvage works.”
Stephen Ng, a spokesman for Aberdeen Restaurant Enterprises, declined to comment on speculation online that the boat might have been scuttled for insurance purposes. There was no immediate evidence to suggest foul play.
For some residents, losing Jumbo was part of a pattern in which things they love about their hometown have vanished since the 2019 protests. A few social media users described the sinking this week as a “nail in the coffin” for the city. Others called it a “burial at sea.”