Obituaries, Wall Street Journal, Nov 16, 2019 (II)

choi

(3) James R Hagerty, Edwin Stephan, 1931-2019. Entrepreneur Sold Sea Cruises to Middle-Class America.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/edw ... america-11573760021

Note:
(a)
(i) Edwin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin
(ii) Stephen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen
("from [Ancient] Greek word [noun masculine] στέφανος (stéphanos), meaning 'wreath, crown' * * * A common variant of the name used in English is Stephan")

(b)
(i) Ted Arison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Arison
(1924 – 1999; "he co-founded Norwegian Cruise Lines in 1966 with Knut Kloster. In 1971 the partnership broke up on bad terms and Arison formed Carnival Cruise Lines in 1972")

Knut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knut
(The name is derived from the Old Norse Knútr meaning "knot")
(ii) The en.wikipedia.org for "Royal Caribbean International" said Royal Caribbean was founded in 1968 in Norway, without mentioning Mr Stephan ("Royal Caribbean Cruise Line was founded in 1968 by three Norwegian shipping companies: Anders Wilhelmsen & Company, IM Skaugen & Company, and Gotaas Larsen. The newly created line put its first ship, the Song of Norway, into service two years later"). Surprisingly en,wikpedia.org does not have a page for Mr Stephan.
(iii) The History of Royal Caribbean. Royal Caribbean's UK website, undated (blog)
https://www.royalcaribbean.co.uk ... of-royal-caribbean/

first three paragraphs:

"…back in 1968 when founders Arne Wilhelmsen and Edwin Stephan were struck by the idea to take three successful Norwegian shipping companies and build a new cruise-liner business from scratch - Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines was born.

"While the rest of the world watched events including the lunar landing and Woodstock festival, we were busy constructing our first ship, Song of Norway. It took its first passengers out to sea in 1970 and Royal Caribbean was officially launched.

"The Song of Norway was one of the world's first major cruise ships [note 'one of the,' not 'the very'] and stayed with us until 1997, when she was sold to Sun Cruises. After numerous name changes and different ownership, the once Song of Norway, now the Formosa Queen [寶島之星 (2012- )], is now operating as the first around-the-island cruise ship in Taiwan.

(c) line (n): "a company that provides ships, aircraft, or buses on particular routes on a regular basis  <a major shipping line>"
https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/line

---------------------full text
He grew up far from the sea, in Wisconsin, didn’t particularly like to travel and was prone to seasickness. Yet Edwin Stephan, who died Nov 8 at age 87, was among the first entrepreneurs to see the vast potential for Miami as a base for cruises in the Bahamas and Caribbean.

Founding what is now Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd in 1969, he joined two other outsiders—Knut Kloster of Norway and Ted Arison, an Israeli—in persuading middle-class Americans that cruises weren't just for the idle rich, or the "overfed and nearly dead," as one of Mr Stephan's aides put it. Serving a mass market that didn't exist in the 1960s, Royal Caribbean is now the world's second-largest cruise operator, after Carnival Corp, founded by Mr Arison. Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, founded by Mr Kloster, is third.  .

[This paragraph does not appear in print:] World-wide, cruise lines carried about 28.5 million passengers last year. About 40% of those passengers were on Caribbean, Bermuda or Bahamas voyages.

Mr Stephan, the shy son of an insurance salesman, had wavy hair and movie-star look when he arrived in Miami Beach in 1954. He was looking for a bit of peace and warmth after a hitch in the US Army, fighting in the Korean War and earning two bronze stars.

Once his money ran out, he went to a hotel school and worked as a bell captain in the Casablanca Hotel in Miami Beach. He later gained management experience at the Biscayne Terrace Hotel in downtown Miami. By 1965, he was general manager of a tiny cruise operator, Yarmouth Cruise Lines, operator of the Yarmouth Castle, a 38-year-old steamship partly made of wood.

Around 12:45 am on Nov 13, 1965, the Yarmouth Castle caught fire en route to the Bahamas. Most of the approximately 550 passengers and crew members were rescued before the ship sanked, but 90 died. Gordon Lightfoot wrote a song about it.

In Miami, Mr Stephan, then 33 years old, was besieged by questions from reporters and Coast Guard investigators. 'The airlines would be set up for something like this,' the Miami News quoted him as saying several days later, 'but for a cruise liner to catch fire and sink—this was a shocker.'

Mr Stephan moved on, working with a partner to set up Commodore Cruise Line before leaving to found Royal Caribbean. Haunted by the Yarmouth castle disaster, Mr Stephan believed that

a cruise line should have new ships, designed for cruising in warm waters and built for safety.

"In the cruise business of the 1960s, nobody really had new ships," he recalled later. He couldn't afford them, but a ship broker introduced him to Sigurd Skaugen, who headed IM Skaugen & Co, a Norwegian shipowner. Mr. Skaugen agreed to provide funding for the first of several cruise ships to be delivered to Royal Caribbean in the early 1970s by a Finnish shipyard. As the cost of building ships grew, two more partners -- Anders Wilhelmsen & Co and Gotaas-Larsen Shipping Corp.—invested in the cruise Line.

Early seven-day cruises on Royal Caribbean cost as little as $368 a person. Onboard entertainers included the comedian Henny Youngman and the opera singer Patrice Munsel. "It was sort of a Catskills at sea," said Rod McLeod, who headed marketing. To bring in more customers, Mr Stephan organized chartered flights from California.

There was glamour: Ingrid Bergman christened the line's second ship, the Nordic Princess.

And romantic comedy: "The Love Boat" a TV series introduced in 1977, spurred interest in cruising. In the late 1970s, Royal Caribbean cruises  were selling out so fast that the line expanded two of its ships by having them cut in half so that a new middle section could be inserted, increasing the capacity to more than 1,000 from about 700.

Edwin William Stephan Jr, known as Ed, was born Dec. 15, 1931, in Madison, Wis. He studied mathematics, accounting and economics at the University of Wisconsin but didn't finish his degree before being drafted into the Army.

At Royal Caribbean, he held various titles, including chief executive and vice chairman. When he retired in 2003, there was little fanfare. "It's about time," he told Miami Herald/ "O'm happy to see the company still in existence."

Mr Stephan was married to the former Helen Morin, his onetime secretary. She survives him, as do four children and three grandchildren. He enjoyed demonstrating his hook shot with a basketball and was a dedicated runner. One of his goals was to compete in a marathon at age 90.

He kept business trips as short as possible. In the 1970s, he flew to a board meeting in Oslo and insisted on boarding his return flight the same day.