Antarctica. MV Explorer listing badly after hitting UFO

Friday, 23 November 2007

The cruise liner, MV Explorer, is listing at 25°, after hitting an unknown object, near the South Shetland Islands. The captain and his first officer are still on board the vessel. All 100 passengers and 54 crew on the ship have taken to the life boats.

The MV Explorer was built for Linblad travel, in the late 1960s. Commissioned by Lars-Eric Lindblad, as the world’s first custom built expedition ship, she left the builder’s yard at Nystad, Finland, on December 14, 1969, and began a series of cruises to locations not previously visited by passenger ships.

In 1984, the MV Explorer became the first passenger vessel to traverse the Northwest Passage. In 1989, the ship helped in the rescue of the crew of a sinking Argentinean supply vessel that had hit a rock ledge, off Anvers Island, Antarctica, In 1997, she became the first passenger vessel to circumnavigate James Clark Ross Island, Antarctica. In 1998, she was first to sail 80 miles above Iquitos, Peru to the point where the Maranon and Ucayali rivers meet to become the Amazon. The MV Explorer’s shallow draft allows her to access places that other ships can not visit and she has set many other firsts in the adventure travel field. Since 1969, she has made over 150 voyages to Antarctica.

Cathy McLean

Cruise liner images

Last Updated ( Friday, 23 November 2007 )