French luxury cruise line Ponant has taken delivery of Le Commandant Charcot, the world’s first hybrid electric polar exploration ship powered by Liquefied Natural Gas.
“Delivery of Le Commandant Charcot is both a culmination and the beginning of a new kind of odyssey for the company. The construction of this prototype ship demanded extremely high standards in terms of quality. I am proud of the work that our teams have accomplished. We are welcoming into our fleet a ship that will offer so much more than just a voyage of exploration, but rather a truly inspiring and fascinating discovery of a still little-known polar world,” said Hervé Gastinel, CEO of Ponant
Commandant Charcot: Sailing the world’s most remote regions
Ponant is making the ship available to the scientific community and it will be equipped with laboratories, and serve as a platform for observation of the water, air, ice and biodiversity in the polar regions.
The ship has 135 staterooms and suites and will carry 270 passengers and 187 crew.
Le Commandant Charcot will be sailing in the world’s most remote regions: the Geographic North Pole, Northeast Greenland’s National Park, circumnavigation of the Svalbard archipelago, the Bellingshausen Sea, Charcot and Pierre I Islands, Weddell Sea and the Larsen Ice Shelf.
Solar eclipse in South America
In December of this year, Le Commandant Charcot will sail from Ushuaia, Argentina, the southernmost tip of South America, to observe a total eclipse of the sun from the spectacular Weddell Sea ice pack on the edge of Antarctica, the only area of the world from which the eclipse will be 100 percent visible.
The total solar eclipse will take place Saturday, December 4, 2021 with the sun darkened for one minute and 54 seconds that will be visible over a path that is 419 kilometers wide at maximum. A partial solar eclipse will be visible throughout Antarctica and from South Africa.
The cruise departs November 30 to December 14, 2021, with prices starting at £13,760
