The Villa Vie Odyssey, a cruise ship marketed as a permanent home for more than 200 residents, departed Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Wednesday with only its crew aboard. The vessel’s lender has taken possession and is now covering the crew’s costs, fuel and upkeep.

Florida-based Villa Vie Residences said soaring fuel expenses caused the business to fail. The company said its monthly fuel cost per cabin rose from $1,800 to between $6,000 and $8,000 after the Iran war drove oil prices higher. Passing the entire increase on to residents, it said, was not realistic. Villa Vie had sold multi-year life-at-sea packages at fixed prices, while its largest variable expense more than tripled.

A Cambodian official said the ship had 203 passengers and 156 crew members before the residents disembarked. Most of the residents were American. The Odyssey is reportedly headed to Singapore, where it could eventually be auctioned.

Before its lender took control, the 642-foot ship was home to people who planned to live aboard for years. Mechanical problems kept it in Belfast, Northern Ireland, until October 2024. It then began a voyage designed to circle the globe every three and a half years, with the first circuit scheduled to visit 147 countries. A four-year stay cost $319,998 for two people sharing a cabin.

For other residents, the arrangement was intended to be a lifetime commitment. Some sold their homes to move aboard. Villa Vie’s Endless Horizons program charged a one-time $299,999 for a single cabin or $499,999 for a double cabin. When Fortune covered the company’s launch in 2023, Villa Vie was offering cabins from $99,000, along with annual fees ranging from $21,000 to $48,000.

As recently as July, the company announced a second ship, Legacy, and said the Odyssey had sold 85% of its residences. On Oct. 27, however, residents were told they had roughly eight hours to leave. The ship was 754 days into its planned voyage.

“Since the conflict began in late February, we have taken significant steps to reduce fuel consumption, including slowing the itinerary and spending more time in port,” the company said in a statement issued the week it halted operations. The measures were not enough.

Residents who sold their business to live at sea

Lanette Canen and Johan Bodin, both 56, were longtime Maui residents who embraced the idea of seeing the world from a residential cruise ship. They said one of the biggest surprises was how much less expensive life at sea could be: They no longer had car or mortgage payments, while meals were included and laundry was handled. They described it as the deal of a lifetime.

The couple sold their business, moved aboard the Odyssey and began documenting the journey on their YouTube channel, Living Life on a Cruise, which now has more than 55,000 subscribers.

In their final vlog from the ship, Canen and Bodin said they began hearing about Villa Vie’s financial difficulties two months before they were ordered to leave. The uncertainty made the experience “emotionally exhausting.”

“I felt really drained the last two months … you get beat down, and then the next day or two, like: oh boy, we have hope, we have investors, we have this coming, and then the next two days, you get beat down again,” Bodin said.

The couple said they are not in dire financial straits and plan to continue traveling through Southeast Asia. They also know residents who invested their life savings and retirement funds in the ship and now do not know what will happen next.

A founder who blames the war

Founder and executive chairman Mikael Petterson has accepted responsibility, calling himself “the villain in the story” in an interview with Business Insider. He nevertheless maintains that the Iran war caused the company’s collapse.

“I think we would have been absolutely fine and we would have seen this through, if there was no Iran war,” Petterson said.

The Iran war’s cost for households

Before U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began on Feb. 28, Brent crude was trading at about $70 a barrel. It subsequently broke above $100 several times and topped $126 in the spring. Crude has since fallen below $100, but regular gasoline still averaged $4.10 per gallon on Nov. 4, according to AAA.

U.S. consumers paid $160 billion more for gasoline and diesel between March 1 and Oct. 14 than they would have without the war, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Fortune reported that this was the largest such bill for any country.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, estimated in mid-October that the war had cost the average American household nearly $2,000. Higher energy prices accounted for about $1,100 of that amount, with the remainder attributed to higher interest rates and the cost of military operations.

Villa Vie now faces its own deadline. The company has given itself about 60 days to restructure and raise new funding, while acknowledging that no outcome is assured. Petterson also told NBC News that a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing may be necessary. The restructuring effort, any bankruptcy filing and the reported possible auction in Singapore are the immediate developments that will shape what happens to the ship and its former residents.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.