History
The Explorer was commissioned by Lars-Eric Lindblad, the Swedish-American pioneer of exotic expedition tours, and built in 1969 at Uudenkaupungin Telakka shipyard in Uusikaupunki, Finland. The ship was built to stay afloat with two compartments filled with water. Her original Finnish-Swedish ice class was relatively weak IC, It's not known when the ice class was uprated to 1A.
The vessel was originally named the Lindblad Explorer after Lars-Eric Lindblad and was the first custom built expeditionary cruise ship. On February 11, 1972, the Explorer ran aground near La Plaza Point, Antarctica; her passengers, Lars-Eric Lindblad among them, were rescued by the Chilean Navy. She was towed to Buenos Aires, Argentina and then to Kristiansand, Norway, for repairs.
On 25 December 1979, Lindblad Explorer ran aground off Vicky Island in the Antarctic. Of the 140 passengers and crew, 125 were rescued by the Chilean Navy icebreaker Piloto Pardo, leaving a skeleton crew of 15 on board to await the arrival of a tug.
In 1984, the Explorer was the first cruise ship to navigate the Northwest Passage. In 1989, she was involved in the rescue of the crew of an Argentinian supply ship that had hit a rock ledge off Anvers Island, Antarctica.
In 1998, the Explorer was the first ship to circumnavigate James Ross Island; and the same year, she is claimed to have been the first ship, as distinct from river boat, to sail 80 miles (130 km) above Iquitos, Peru, to the point where the Marañón and Ucayali rivers meet to become the Amazon River.
The Explorer was depicted on at least two postage stamps issued by South Georgia and one issued by the Falkland Islands. The Explorer was nicknamed the Little Red Ship.
Read more about this topic: MV Explorer (1969)
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