Hurtigruten’s new hybrid, battery-powered expedition cruise ship MS Fridtjof Nansen will be finished earlier than expected so Hurtigruten is adding a series of shorter pre-inaugural voyages.
MS Fridtjof Nansen is packed with green technology and large battery packs and is, alongside her sister ship MS Roald Amundsen, the world’s first battery-hybrid powered cruise ship.
The ship is set for delivery by the end of 2019 well ahead of her 1 April inaugural voyage from Hamburg to the Norwegian coast.
Hurtigruten CEO Daniel Skjeldam said while pre-inaugural voyages were normally offered to specially invited guests only, this time they wanted to share the special occasion and give more explorers the opportunity for a first-hand experience of MS Fridtjof Nansen.
Departing from London (7 March), Liverpool (12 March) and Portsmouth (17 March), the newly announced five-night pre-inaugural voyages will explore hand-picked destinations in and around the British Isles.
The hybrid-powered ship will visit destinations such as Isles of Scilly, Fowey, Isle of Man and Dartmouth.
A four-night voyage to the Norwegian capital of Oslo will take guests through the Kiel Canal and Aalborg in Denmark, from London’s iconic Tower Bridge.
MS Fridtjof Nansen is in the final outfitting stages on Norway’s Kleven Yard and over the past week, the ship has been undergoing sea trials off the west coast of Norway.
With the Norwegian fjords as testing ground – and the famous Sunnmøre alps as a spectacular backdrop – the hybrid-powered ship’s advanced, green technology was put to the test. This included her battery packs.
“We are extremely satisfied with the results of the sea trials. In fact, she performed so well that we concluded the tests a full day early,” Kleven CEO Kjetil Bollestad said
As well as the pre-inaugural voyages, MS Fridtjof Nansen’s maiden season includes a series of cruises from Hamburg to the Norwegian coast, before spending the summer of 2020 exploring Greenland and Iceland.
In the 2020/2021 southern hemisphere summer season, she will join her hybrid-powered sister ship MS Roald Amundsen for Hurtigruten’s signature Antarctica expeditions.
Hurtigruten CEO Daniel Skjeldam.
The introduction of the world’s first hybrid-powered expedition cruise ships is the latest in a number of Hurtigruten green initiatives.
Hurtigruten celebrated its 125th anniversary by banning all single-use-plastics. They’re also completely rebuilding existing ships to run on a combination of large battery packs, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and biogas (LBG) – produced from
organic waste such as dead fish.