Like most youngsters I was prone to hero-worship, and my cast inevitably included sports stars, movie icons, rock gods and historic figures. Nevertheless, back in the early 1980s I suspect I was unique in the UK, if not the entire globe, in having a cruise line chairman at the summit of my particular totem. By then I was already fascinated with ships and especially the French Line’s France. She had been laid-up in a Le Havre backwater for almost five years seemingly never to sail again. Her saviour, it transpired, was a Norwegian with an unpronounceable first name. He was the one who captured my impressionable imagination.

I was inclined to like Knut Kloster from the start. Over subsequent years the more I read, the more I respected both his achievements and his personality. They say that you should never ‘meet’ your heroes, presumably for fear that their failings will destroy the pedestal that you have placed them on. Well, in 2010 I completed a painting to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of SS Norway’s introduction and decided to give the first print to Mr Kloster, as a thank you for inspiring me all those years ago. With a certain trepidation I obtained his contact details from a mutual acquaintance and sent a speculative email. Of course I needn’t have worried. He was as gracious as I had been led to believe and as a reciprocal ‘thank you’ he recounted anecdotes from Norway’s maiden voyage. Doubtless like all of us he had his flaws, but insensitivity certainly isn’t one of them. Rare detractors tend to focus on his idealism and perceived naivety, but to many these are virtues rather than blemishes on a character. Besides which, naivety seems an odd label to levy on a man who helped forge a multi-billion pound industry and ran the most successful cruise line of its era

Knut Utstein Kloster was born in Oslo on 2nd April 1929, the son of his namesake and his mother Ingeborg (née Ihlen), three years his father‘s junior. After early schooling in Norway, the young Knut went to the USA for further education, graduating in 1951 with a degree in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On returning to Norway he undertook compulsory National Service (interestingly in the Air Force, rather than the Navy) before joining the family firm in 1953. Always a close-knit community, the Norwegian shipping fraternity became even more tightly bonded that same year, when Knut married Inger Katrine Bregval, daughter of another second generation ship-owner, Arvid Bergval. Knut and ‘Trine’ would have four children, one of whom would ultimately succeed him at NCL.

Knut’s grandfather, Lauritz Kloster (1870 to 1952) had started out shipping ice in the early 1900s and established Klosters Rederi A/S in 1924 with a fleet of five dry bulk and tanker vessels. Under the guidance of Lauritz’s son (Knut senior) the company had continued to expand and concentrate on the burgeoning oil tanker trade, in which the Norwegians were both pioneers and innovators.

A steady transition to the next generation seemed assured, until the untimely death of his father in 1959 thrust the thirty year old Knut junior into the role of managing director. Any concerns about the ability of the new MD were quickly dispelled. Knut Kloster rapidly proved to be an authoritative and skilled operator. His quiet manner belied a mental strength and courage in his own convictions that informed every aspect of his life. Even at this early stage Kloster was demonstrating the progressive thinking and ability to get the best out of those around him that would characterise his career.

It might be that the wider world would never have heard of Knut Utstein Kloster had it not been for conversations he had with another member of the Klosters Rederi A/S board, Otto Thoresen. When British Railways decided to pull out of cross-channel ferry operations from Southampton, Thoresen saw an opportunity to fill the ensuing void. Thoresen’s foresight was to exploit growing car and caravan ownership amongst the public at large, with a willingness to explore the continent by road. Fresh, new vessels introduced the Ro-Ro (Roll on-Roll off through bow and stern doors) concept for quick turn around and a brighter, more comfortable way to sail. When Viking I’s vibrant orange-red hull inaugurated the service between the Hampshire port and Normandy she represented a paradigm shift in cross-channel ferry operations.

Thoresen’s success sparked Kloster’s interest. He was already thinking about diversifying from the company’s core tanker business, with its cyclical trends. Investing a portion of the accumulated profits in passenger ferries now appeared to be a prudent option, but in a typically bold and innovative move Kloster established a whole new concept in UK ferry services, sailing from Southampton to Gibraltar with interim calls at Vigo and Lisbon. The service required a vessel capable of offering sufficient overnight accommodation and withstanding the notorious Bay of Biscay. Designed by the Danish firm Knud E. Hansen A/S (the first of many collaborations with its chief naval architect Tage Wandborg) and built by Bergens Mekaniske Verksteder, the 8,666grt Sunward included fin stabilisers and a hydraulic ’stability tank’ mechanism for ironing out those Biscayan seas. She also featured one and a half decks of cabin space (exceptionally all with en suite facilities) and an ‘open plan’ set of public spaces which not only increased the sense of spaciousness but also encouraged greater circulation and spending by passengers. In its tropical livery of white with a symbolic sunburst logo on the flanks and sharply raked blue and white funnels, the new ship represented a state of the art hybrid cruise-ferry, offering a high-class means of getting to and from southern Europe.

What had seemed a reasonable concept foundered almost immediately on two political rocks in the summer of 1966. First the UK Government sought to stabilise sterling by implementing a range of exchange controls. These included restricting UK holidaymakers to just £50 travel money and £15 cash, hardly enough to drive back from southern Spain let alone holiday en-route. Second, in a final bid to assert his authority on the simmering dispute over Gibraltar’s sovereignty, Spain’s ageing leader, Francisco Franco, introduced draconian restrictions on the passage of traffic across the border with The Rock. The full bookings and optimism of spring and early summer dissipated and Sunward was laid up, first at Southampton and then Oslo. Kloster returned to the company’s core oil business.

It was in these less than favourable circumstances that Knut Kloster took a phone call one November morning in 1966 that would change his life, and indirectly those of millions more worldwide. The call came from a Florida based Israeli shipping agent, Ted Arison. Having seen his chartered cruise ship Nili arrested in Miami Arison’s dilemma was the exact mirror image of Kloster’s. He had plenty of potential passengers but no ship, whilst Kloster had a ship but no passengers. Arison persuaded Kloster to board a plane and fly to Miami.

After a less than enthusiastic reception Kloster’s interest was sparked when presentations by Arison’s team and associated concessionaires emphasised the potential of the nascent Miami cruise scene. Ted’s real success, as Kristoffer A. Garin recalls so vividly in his book ‘Devils on the Deep Blue Sea’, came when he showed Kloster and his operations manager Kjell Nielsen the city’s rather ramshackle old seaport.

Here sat a collection of vintage old liners which passed for the Caribbean’s existing cruise trade, but even they were fully booked week in week out. Arison then introduced Kloster to the newly appointed port director, retired admiral Erwin Stevens. Pristine and eloquent with his clipped military tone, Stevens waxed lyrical about the port’s development potential, the new cruise ship terminals he envisaged and how, subject to Kloster’s commitment, they could be built in record time on the barren wasteland of Dodge Island. Doubtless swept along by the ambitious American and Israeli, but also seeing the potential and most obviously concerned about what else he would do with the redundant Sunward, Kloster had reached a broad agreement with Arison and Stevens by the time he flew back to Oslo. Norwegian Caribbean Lines was formed.

On 20th December 1966 Sunward sailed out of Miami for an inaugural Christmas cruise. She was filled to capacity. Frank Fraser may have been operating assorted old cruise ships out of Miami since the 1950s but the introduction of Sunward is generally regarded as the catalyst that spawned the modern cruise industry. Kloster and Arison’s agreement operated on a clear division of responsibility. The Norwegian owned the ship, the company name and provided the deck/engineering crew. Arison’s team provided the hotel and entertainment staff, undertook the marketing, booking and back office functions and essentially carried out the day to day running of the business. Arison also set up a separate stevedoring company to manage the freight element, which initially constituted a substantial part of the business, shipping trailers to the Bahamas and Jamaica on the Sunward’s vehicle deck.

The company prospered beyond their wildest expectations and the profits generated eclipsed anything Sunward could have achieved on the Southampton to Gibraltar run. In rapid succession Kloster ordered two more Knud E. Hansen A/S designed vessels, to be built by AG Weser Seebeckwerft at Bremerhaven. The first, Starward, departed Miami two years and a day after Sunward’s maiden voyage, followed by Skyward almost exactly one year later in December 1969. Although of identical physical dimensions (160.1m long with a beam of 22.8m) the second ship was more than 3,000grt larger, Kloster having realised that passengers rather than trailers were now the most profitable cargo. Wandborg dispensed with the vehicle deck and replaced it with prefabricated cabins.

As the business flourished a friendship developed between NCL’s two key protagonists and their families. Knut invited Ted’s second wife, Marilyn ‘Lin’ (she was his secretary when Kloster first visited in 1966 and married Ted the following year) to perform Skyward’s naming ceremony. In a reciprocal gesture Kloster played a significant role at Ted’s sister’s wedding. Those tight bonds made the subsequent falling out even more distressing.

Such was the level of profitability and success that Kloster was also able to indulge some of his humanist ideals. The apparent hypocrisy of his situation was not lost on the progressive thinking Norwegian and he sought to develop NCL as a manifestation of his core belief, that if correctly directed capitalism was not the enemy of an egalitarian society but a means of achieving it. From the beginning he had been troubled by the whole ethos and impact of the cruise ‘industry’, culturally and environmentally. So whilst most cruise operators placated their consciences with thoughts of the economic benefits the ships and their acquisitive passengers left in their wake, it was a dilemma that troubled Kloster and one he actively sought to address for the rest of his tenure as company chairman. NCL’s ships were after all sailing packed full of relatively affluent Americans, visiting largely impoverished Caribbean Islands.

Unlike many corporate executives Kloster’s high ideals remained untainted by age, wealth and power. He had grown up in the notoriously conservative Norwegian shipping circles, yet the outwardly clean-shaven, suited MD of Klosters Rederi A/S harboured very different sentiments within. He found an ally in Herb Hiller, Arison’s press officer, whose long hair and beard more obviously reflected the duo‘s off-beat, almost hippie thinking and rhetoric. Hiller was made Norwegian Caribbean Line’s PR chief (Vice President) and hatched plans for how to address and bridge the cultural disparity. The solutions were entitled ‘New Experiences’ and included inviting professional members of the island communities to meet their holidaying equivalents for lunch onboard. Another proposal was for Jamaican stewards to provide guided tours of Kingston and to invite ‘their’ passengers back home.

Despite the best of intentions the program was unpopular with most crew and shore staff and perceived as patronising by many island participants. Like so many of Kloster’s ideas it was in many ways ahead of its time. Although specifics differ, such immersive experiences are now a staple of the cruise industry and in some respects a forerunner of eco-tourism. Nevertheless whilst Knut’s attention was diverted to rectifying the world’s inequalities, problems were brewing closer to home.

Although Arison and Kloster’s relationship remained strong in the late 1960s and the company continued to prosper, political infighting and fissures were developing within NCL’s structure. Nielsen’s residence within the Arison offices had always been resented and the tight controls exercised from NCL’s Oslo office were perceived as unnecessary micro-management within Arison Shipping’s team. For their part the Norwegians were sceptical of the American element’s motives and operation, ultimately with some justification. It was ironic given the ‘New Experiences’ program that an obvious cultural rift was developing between the Norwegian and American elements of NCL. In such a tinder-box atmosphere it would take just a solitary spark to blow the whole organisation apart. It all boiled down to the treatment of advanced ticket sales. According to the agreement, once these advances were received by the Arison team they had to be deposited into an NCL account. The use of the money lit the fuse.

Nielsen discovered that NCL’s (i.e. Kloster’s) money was being used by Arison to capitalise a broad range of offshoot business projects. For his part Ted argued that it was a misunderstanding, a matter of semantics. The money was always paid across to NCL at the time the relevant guests sailed, so why was it a problem? Kloster’s first reaction perhaps inevitably given his nature, was disbelief. There had to be some reasonable, logical explanation, however when Nielsen and his team presented further evidence Knut decided to confront Arison.

Reasonableness quickly evaporated. For both men and their respective business’s it was a matter of survival. There followed a bitter legal dispute and underhand actions by both parties. From the outside it’s easy to moralise and Kloster has probably accurately been portrayed as the victim, the good guy who was wronged. Nevertheless creation of the toxic atmosphere in which events unfolded was perhaps the fault of both sides. Realising that the legal case was rapidly closing in, Arison channeled the funds in question via a fellow veteran of the Israeli War of Independence and personal friend Meshulam Riklis.

The money went to a Boston based tour operation owned by Riklis called American International Travel Service (AITS) and was used to buy the laid-up, former Canadian Pacific liner, the Empress of Canada. She would become the first ship of a new cruise line. One method by which Arison distanced himself from the operation was to follow the nomenclature of Riklis’s other businesses, so Carnival Tours’ new shipping arm became Carnival Cruise Line. For NCL and Kloster the financial and reputation cost of the split was enormous. The rancour was alien to Knut’s innate sensitivity, the good he always saw in others was severely challenged. He was forced to take radical action when Arison’s team withheld all passenger information details on future cruises, authorising a break-in to Arison Shipping’s offices to obtain the relevant printouts. Without them NCL would almost certainly have collapsed.

Equally damaging to Kloster was the personal cost. He had developed a close relationship with Ted, Lin and their family, including Ted’s son from his first marriage and subsequent heir at Carnival, Micky Arison. Always one to wear his heart on his sleeve, it hurt Knut deeply to see these friends, people he had a genuine affection for, turn from fond allies to foes.

Even as the rift played out however there was still a cruise line to operate. Kloster moved to Miami and established new NCL offices, literally around the block from Arison Shipping. Starting from scratch the Norwegian invited Arison employees to join him, a high proportion packed their desks and moved. To supplement the workforce NCL recruited several former airline staff, who brought fresh ideas along with their honed skills. Amongst them was Bruce Nierenberg, who later set up Premier Cruises. He was quoted in a Maritime Executive magazine article by Alan E. Jordan published in 2017 as saying “Knut Kloster liked NCL’s reputation as a company of innovation. Knut let people settle in and gave us room to try new ideas”. This open-minded approach allowed the company to build a close partnership with the airlines that would dramatically increase NCL’s customer base from its predominantly Florida core. Soon they were able to establish a London office and market Caribbean cruises in Europe. The ocean liner’s nemesis, jet aircraft, became the cruise ship’s chief collaborator.

Prior to the dramas of the Arison split Kloster had been planning a further increase in tonnage. NCL ordered two ships of identical length and breadth to Starward and Skyward but this time, following Wandborg’s intervention, completed as fully fledged cruise ships. They chose the CN del Tirreno & Riuniti yard at Riva Trigoso, located midway between Genoa and La Spezia on Italy’s Ligurian coast to build them. Initially all went well, the yard even agreed to Wandborg’s personally supervised changes whilst adhering to the original contract price of $13 million each. Unfortunately for Kloster however, even as the acrimony unfolded in Miami there were problems in Italy. The first ship, Southward, was launched on 5th June 1971 and completed six months later. The contract for the second ship was cancelled when the yard demanded an additional $10 million. This vessel was subsequently taken on by P&O, who named their new acquisition Spirit of London.

These setbacks may have broken a lesser man. Kloster however had his sights set even further ahead. He continued to pursue his long held ambition for a bespoke cruise ship that acted as a diverse community, what he referred to as a mini-United Nations. The first manifestation was possibly the most radical passenger ship yet devised. Although mooted in the late 1960s, details of the 20,000 to 22,000 grt vessel finally emerged in May 1972 when NCL announced a firm commitment to the project. Although Elysian (named with reference to the fields of Greek mythology) was relatively small, her hybrid configuration included a mono-hull bow coupled to a broad beamed catamaran mid-section and stern, providing a spacious interior and broad sun decks with larger than normal swimming pools. The ship’s large indoor sport complex included full size tennis courts and there would be numerous eateries and expansive lounges. Perhaps the most novel concepts were a glass bottomed section in the hull and a huge glass dome on the upper deck, allowing passengers to view sub-sea marine life and celestial bodies respectively. Externally her bow and hull bore a passing resemblance to P&O-Orient Line’s Oriana, whilst the athwart ship funnels incorporated lofty observation lounges.

In Kloster’s own words, “The broad beam would allow for the greatest flexibility of facilities and freedom of passenger movement on any cruise vessel afloat”. It would also have significantly reduced any tendency to roll. In 1973 the Elysian project was put on hold and in September 1974 a further postponement was announced. With building costs spiralling upward from its initial £20 million estimate and a slump in profits during the mid-1970s it seemed Kloster’s dream might have to be abandoned. In practise it was simply postponed.

Meanwhile his day to day focus and attention was on the burgeoning Caribbean cruise trade. There was simply insufficient time to build a new cruise ship in order to harness the dramatic increase in passenger numbers during the late 1970s and he therefore scanned the market for secondhand tonnage. There were numerous options including the Italian Line’s Michelangelo and Raffaello and the laid up Blue Riband holder United States, but ultimately Knut Kloster’s attention was drawn to another superannuated liner, a ship lying dormant in a Le Havre backwater.

In February 1979 Kloster travelled to France with Bruce Nierenberg. In Le Havre, the famous French port at the mouth of the Seine they met up with Tage Wandborg and took a taxi out through suburbs and the adjacent petrochemical complex to an area of barren land adjacent to a canal. There, tethered to makeshift bollards, in what locals had renamed Quai de l’oubli (Quay of the forgotten), was the France. Although they were all highly successful and utterly rational businessmen it appears that the former French Line flagship weaved a spell over the attendees. In a later interview Kloster would comment, “It may seem a strange thing to say but she seemed to be smiling at us there where she lay. There was an elegance about her still, and she seemed to know that we had her best interests at heart, that we had come to save her from an ignominious end”. Wandborg was similarly lyrical, believing the great ship was calling to him, saying, “Take me and give me a new life”. Despite the frigid, dank conditions Kloster, Nierenberg and Wandborg were highly impressed by how well preserved the ship was and the self-evident quality of the fixtures, craftsmanship and machinery. For Wandborg, a veteran of 160 ship conversions, France represented the supreme challenge.

Back in Oslo Kloster sounded out financiers whilst also setting Wandborg a straightforward task. He explained that the company had a thirty day option to buy the ship and so he wanted to know whether the vessel could be transformed into a cruise ship, how long he needed to evaluate the possibility and the approximate cost. In the interim further specialists in everything from housekeeping to turbine engineering travelled to Le Havre to look over the ship. After three weeks Wandborg met Kloster. He confirmed unequivocally that the conversion was possible, and the cost was $60 million. On 25th June 1979 Kloster travelled to Paris to sign the contract (the ship’s then owner, oil tycoon Akram Ojjeh had refused to sell without a personal meeting), acquiring France for a bargain $18 million.

The ‘crazy Norwegian’ as the Havrais affectionately dubbed the new owner of their moribund flagship now sought tenders for the conversion project, ultimately assigning the task to HAPAG-Lloyd Werft at Bremerhaven. They offered both the lowest price and, crucially, the shortest timeframe of ten months. After his death, in a gesture so typical of the man, Nierenberg revealed that Kloster had wanted to tow his new acquisition to Vietnam prior to the refit, offering her as a shelter for the homeless boat people then filling newsreels worldwide. Not for the last time the Norwegians altruism was thwarted by politics. One of the first tasks was to name the new ship. The company’s ‘-ward’ suffix seemed somehow inappropriate and although a variety of options were discussed ultimately the Chairman’s decision was final. Having sought and received royal consent, Kloster announced that France would be renamed Norway, both as a nod to her previous incarnation and in acknowledgement of the ship’s special status and personality.

The structural changes made by Wandborg and his team, coupled with the interior décor and furnishings of New York based designer Angelo Donghia transformed the ship. Externally Wandborg achieved his goal of ‘opening her up like a flower’, including vast new sun decks and an open air dining venue. Meanwhile Donghia created a warm, contemporary yet sophisticated feel for the public rooms. Thankfully Wandborg’s initial proposal to remove the forward funnel and replace the aft one with a contemporary structure was vetoed by Kloster, both men ultimately decided to retain the two originals.

After introducing his new vessel to the Oslo public and the reigning monarch, Kloster was on board for her transatlantic crossing from Southampton to New York and maiden arrival at Miami in May 1980. When she sailed down Government Cut to her Dodge Island berth (her length meant she occupied two adjacent terminals) it wasn’t just the Havrais who thought the Norwegian was crazy. Rivals and industry insiders questioned Kloster’s sanity for introducing a twenty year old ship that increased year-round cruising capacity from the Florida port by almost 40%, whilst spending approximately $100 million in the process. Despite several early set-backs including two complete power failures, Kloster’s faith in the project was fully vindicated. The key to the ship’s success was a combination of operational efficiency and a cruise experience beyond anything previously conceived. Having removed two of the four shafts and the entire forward engine room propulsion machinery, Norway cruised at a sedate and fuel efficient 17 knots. Additional cabins increased capacity to 2,181 whilst topping up the passage fares were ‘revenue rich’ bars and a casino. Norway’s scale meant fully fledged Broadway shows could be staged in the Saga Theatre, whilst the biggest names in show-business lined up to entertain the clientele. At the suggestion of Nierenberg, NCL became the first cruise line to have a private island, leased from the Bahamian Government, whilst Wandborg’s ingeniously stored landing-craft style tenders allowed passengers to walk directly off onto an idyllic Caribbean beach.

There is little doubt that much of Norway’s success and indeed the rest of the White Viking Fleet was the dedication of her crew and shore side personnel. That willingness to go the extra mile stemmed at least partly from a loyalty to the ship and her owner. Kloster was undoubtedly proud of the ship and her achievements but perhaps his greatest personal source of satisfaction was the small, blue United Nations flag that fluttered from her mast. Sanctioned by UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim it highlighted the fact that her crew comprised more than fifty different nationalities. Despite the higher taxes and regulatory costs Kloster insisted on maintaining Norwegian registry for his ships, and in doing so securing better pay and conditions for crew members compared to most of his rivals. Perhaps Knut Kloster’s personal apogee came in 1984. He was onboard Norway as she sailed the length and breadth of his native country, blessed with almost unbroken sunshine and drawing huge crowds and flotillas of pleasure boats wherever she went. Norway’s lauded return to Europe also coincided with the unveiling of a huge model of Kloster and Wandborg’s new project, Phoenix.

Phoenix took the general principles of the earlier Elysian idea and then expanded them exponentially. With a length of 1,250ft, a beam of 253ft and coming in at a hefty 250,000 grt Phoenix was more than three times the size of Norway. In effect she was a huge barge, retaining the mono-hull/catamaran hull configuration of Elysian, topped by four blocks of accommodation. All the cabins were outside, and the majority had balconies. The forward and aft towers broadly mirrored the forward and aft superstructure elements of a conventional cruise ship whilst the two central towers were arranged obliquely, providing sea views for all. Phoenix was drawn from a simple premise which Knut Kloster explained, “A lot of people are sceptical about its design but that is because the design of all cruise ships today is rooted in the old concept of a passenger ship as a means of transportation. If you think of a cruise ship as a resort in itself, why would you want to put the bulk of the passengers in cabins below decks, many of them without windows? We think the ‘Phoenix’ is beautiful because it is functionally perfect and escapes the strictures of traditional concepts”.

With the cabins located in towers above, the huge hull provided almost limitless possibilities for dining, recreation and entertainment facilities. These included full size tennis courts, an Olympic (not the Edwardian ship!) sized swimming pool, a 2,000 seat theatre, all accessed via ‘streets’ and incorporating shopping malls. Getting on and off such a vast vessel was simple, with numerous 400 seat lifeboat/tenders like Norway’s, stored under a cantilevered superstructure deck. They allowed passengers to board directly from openings in the hull for emergency evacuation but from a flooded aft dock when anchored off a Caribbean Island. Once again Knut Kloster the visionary was simply ahead of his time. We need to remember this was 1984, it would be quarter of a century later that many of the ideas inherent in the design of Phoenix finally took tangible form in Oasis of the Seas. In the meantime Kloster had taken himself and Phoenix down a different path, once more an idealistic furrow which would be wrecked on those common reefs of finance and politics.

Even whilst Kloster was developing the Phoenix project at considerable personal expense, investing a reputed $17 million of his own funds, NCL’s board was considering its position. Norway and the smaller ‘-ward’ ships had been supplemented in 1984 by the acquisition of Royal Viking Line. Nevertheless as their chief rivals, Carnival and Royal Caribbean went public and expanded rapidly, investing aggressively in conventional new tonnage, many on the board became collectively concerned that NCL would be left behind. Kloster was given an ultimatum, to abandon Phoenix or leave. For a man of Knut’s high principles there was simply no choice and in 1986 he resigned NCL’s chairmanship, which passed to his brother Einar. Subsequently, to make itself a more attractive proposition for investors, the company abandoned many of the employee safeguards installed by Knut Kloster, most visibly the Bahamian flag replaced the Norwegian postal pennant on the company‘s masts. In going public the company effectively morphed into a facsimile of its rivals.

For Kloster, unfettered by the constraints of NCL, the Phoenix project now evolved into a moral, as well as a business proposition. In many ways the ship was a microcosm of his long held beliefs, referred to earlier, that business, leisure and cross-cultural cohesion could exist harmoniously and even flourish together. Nevertheless Phoenix’s eye-watering building cost of $1 billion required a series of share issues and governmental support. After initial interest from the Swedish Kockums yard and Wärtsilä of Finland faded, two consortia of Japanese and German shipyards entered the fray as potential builders. Nevertheless Phoenix seemed so outlandish that neither of these governments, or indeed private investors, were willing to underwrite and subsidise the construction and initial operational costs.

Ultimately Kloster teamed up with an old accomplice, John S. Rogers, with whom he had worked on a port facility complex in Saudi Arabia. They formed the World City Corporation with offices in Oslo and New York. Kloster believed his ship could simultaneously offer an enhanced cruise ship experience and harness the huge potential of the corporate hospitality market. Yet Knut Kloster’s vision went even further. Alongside World City Corporation he established World City Foundation, a vehicle for promoting education, cultural enrichment, environmental concerns, citizenship, and for increasing international understanding through a broad range of programmes funded by some of the cruise ship’s profits. The ship was thereafter known as Phoenix World City and Tage Wandborg was once more tasked with developing the design. Specialists were employed to look at using cutting edge technology in every aspect of its operation, especially environmental.

Personified in a dramatically futuristic and exceptionally large oil painting by renowned artist Robert T. McCall, the Phoenix World City captured the collective imagination and became linked with many esteemed politicians and corporate heads from across the globe. It seemed as if her time had come, and the ship would ultimately take tangible form. Unfortunately for Kloster it was not to be.

Having exhausted potential European and Asian shipbuilding yards, the Phoenix team shifted their focus to the USA. Their rationale was indisputable. Kloster’s view was that the United States was the obvious location for a ship of Phoenix’s size and facilities. He envisaged her as a business convention centre, as well as a floating resort. Unlike the conventional cruise line product, Phoenix World City would allow guests to board and disembark at any point along a given voyage, in essence to mirror the resorts of terra firma. To allow her to skirt the US coastline whilst complying with the U.S. Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA), Phoenix World City would need to be both built and flagged in the U.S.

There were considerable logistical hurdles. No large passenger ship had been built in the country since the record breaking United States fifty years earlier. Furthermore, constructing a vessel in the US was more costly than the heavily subsidised European alternatives. Nevertheless a mechanism existed for securing low interest, long-term government loan guarantees for viable projects, known as Title XI. Passenger ship operations being such a capital intensive undertaking, the intention of Title XI of The Merchant Marine Act 1936 was to offset some of that huge initial outlay.

Regarding the U.S. registration of the ship, the perceived wisdom was that the higher taxes and costs of U.S. regulation, which had dissuaded so many operators over the years could be offset by the economies of scale of the vessel. It seemed obvious to Kloster and his team that the proposal would be met with welcome arms on Capitol Hill and by the incumbent U.S. administration. The project would be creating jobs in the shipyards, the fitting out and supply industries, not to mention the crew aboard. Crucially, unlike their ‘flag of convenience’ rivals, World City Corporation would also be contributing hefty taxes to the US treasury.

Politics however once again weaved its duplicitous spell. Incredibly, given that the existing cruise operators were regarded as one of the top ten contributors to the U.S. trade deficit, the ‘Flag of convenience’ lobby wielded disproportionate power in Government circles and effectively blocked the project’s development. Despite Kloster’s earnest endeavours, receiving support from diverse corporate backers, organisations like the American Bureau of Shipping and U.S. Coast Guard and a selection of politicians, the ‘Build America’ campaign failed to realise its ultimate goal. Phoenix World City remained intangible.

Even as Kloster’s huge ship project was starting its difficult and ultimately aborted gestation he was involved with another vessel of very different dimensions and heritage. In 1991, together with the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation and the governments of both Norway and Iceland, Kloster provided financial sponsorship and vocal support for a millennial re-enactment of Leif Eriksson’s voyage to America, in part at least “…..because I am fond of my country and proud of our history as a seafaring people”. An intrepid crew under the guidance of Captain Ragner Thorseth set out on the dangerous adventure, to cross the Atlantic on an exact replica of a thousand year old Gogstad Viking boat, acquired by Kloster. By the time it started, sailing from Norway to Washington D.C. via Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland, Boston and New York, the voyage had evolved into more than a simple re-enactment. Kloster and his associated sponsors wanted to publicise the environmental and human costs of development and the need for change. The boat and the project were called Gaia, the ancient Greek word encapsulating Mother Earth and Mother Nature. The message was simple, the need for humanity to work in conjunction with nature for our mutual survival. The Gaia voyage gained significant media and political attention, even the incumbent President George Bush attended the arrival in Washington. Knut harnessed this momentum and developed it further. Gaia sailed on from Washington to the Earth Summit at Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, gathering thousands of messages from children en route for delivery to world leaders. He was amongst the pioneer environmentalists but thirty years later those issues remain unresolved.

Although America World City and a Chinese variant, Dragon World City, continued to bubble in the background, and he, very uncomfortably, received and accepted Norway’s highest honour, the Order of St. Olav, for services to the nation’s shipping industry, Knut Kloster refused to rest on his laurels. His interests have always been far and wide. From chairing a Red Cross committee involved in the construction of an allergy institute, to sponsoring a Norwegian ‘Band Aid’ style record for refugees, he has lent his name and money to numerous, diverse causes over the years. He took a leading role in the single largest construction project (Hafjell Village) for the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympics, actively promoting the game’s environmental credentials.     He became a frequent visitor to local prisons, establishing an industrial service specifically targeted at helping offenders gain a first step to integrating back into society. From taking a controversial anti-whaling stance, to promoting electoral reform and a memorial for the victims of 9/11, Knut Kloster repeatedly put his intellect and effort towards doing the right thing, challenging authority and the status quo in pursuit of a more egalitarian, environmentally conscious global society.

Given his wealth and influence Kloster lived remarkably frugally, eschewing the trappings of his status. He was a man seemingly devoid of ego, living in the same, relatively modest suburban home in Oslo throughout. His public persona and influence belied a very private man, always more at home walking his beloved German Shepherd dogs in the local countryside than attending cocktail parties and award ceremonies. When he did put himself in the public eye it was invariably for the promotion of others.

When he died on 20th September 2020 the world lost a truly great man whose broad vision and humanity proved what can be achieved by an exceptional human being devoted to the collective good. Now more than ever the world needs people like Knut Kloster, we can only hope that his legacy results in the realisation of those values and goals