More and more companies are attempting to expand into Arctic cruise shipping. The newest attempt is by Lindblad, which celebrated the keel laying of its first polar new build at the CRIST shipyard in Gdynia, Poland.
After the ceremony, Sven Lindblad, Trey Byus, and Captain Leif Skog departed to Longyearbyen to start a reconnaissance expedition that will make discoveries for 2020 early season Arctic adventures for National Geographic Endurance.
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The ship will be built by Ulstein and will be able to go deep into polar regions. The ship’s expanded fuel and water tanks can provide extended operations in remote areas.
However, this is not the first cruise ship aimed to sail in the Arctic. Namely, 16 new expedition vessels for Arctic waters are being designed. Amongst them the following:
- Sunstone Ships agreed with the China Merchant Industry Holdings to build four expedition vessels with options for six more.
- China Merchant Industry Holdings started building the first vessel of this kind, which is expected to be delivered in August 2019.
- Ponant ordered the world’s first non-nuclear cruise ship, which is to sail at the North Pole with about 270 passengers.
- Poseidon Expeditions’ “Sea Spirit” offered tours from Longyearbyen to the Russian Arctic.
- Hurtigruten will provide two voyages with its vessel “Spitsbergen” from Tromsø through Murmansk to Franz Josef Land.
