La Belle Des Oceans

La Belle Des Oceans is a small, yacht-type cruise ship operated by CroisiEurope. She has previously been operated by a number of cruise lines under different names, the most recent of which was Silver Discoverer.[4]

Silver Discoverer former Clipper Odyssey docked at Trondheim, Norway, on 21 June 2012.
History
Name
  • 1989–1997: Oceanic Grace
  • 1997–1999: Oceanic Odyssey
  • 1999–2014: Clipper Odyssey
  • 2014–2019: Silver Discoverer
  • 2019-: La Belle Des Oceans
Owner
Operator
Port of registryNassau,  Bahamas
BuilderNKK Tsu Works - Tsu, Japan
Launched31 October 1988
Completed1989
Identification
StatusIn service
General characteristics
Tonnage5,218 GT
Length102.97 m (337.8 ft)[3]
Beam15.42 m (50.6 ft)
Draught4.13 m (13.5 ft)
Capacity128 passengers

Architecture and equipment

The ship has a gross tonnage of 5,218, is 338 feet long and 51 feet wide. She is for destination-intensive cruising and does not have many amenities like larger ships.

All the cabins are outside and the ship has a small selection of balcony rooms and has one suite. She can accommodate up to 120 passengers[5] in five categories.

The facilities on board include a jogging track, a swimming pool; a gym and beauty salon; a restaurant and pool grill; a lecture room for in-depth stories and briefings about the destinations and a panoramic lounge. Silver Discoverer is also equipped with 12 Zodiac boats and a glass-bottom boat for exploration of marine life. She used to have a decompression chamber for divers, but it is no longer in use.

Service history

The ship was built in 1989 for the Japanese market as Oceanic Grace, before being bought by Indonesia's Spice Islands Cruises which renamed her Oceanic Odyssey. In 1999, she was bought by St Louis-based Clipper Cruise Line, and renamed Clipper Odyssey.[5] She was then sold in 2007 to International Shipping Partners.[6]

On 10 September 2013, it was announced that the vessel had been purchased by Silversea Cruises.[7] She entered service for Silversea on 1 March 2014, after being rechristened in Singapore by Elda Turco Bulgherini.[8] The following month, she commenced a program of short cruises along the Kimberley coastline between Broome and Darwin, Australia.[9]

As Silver Discoverer, she is deployed in remote regions of the world including Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, the Russian Far East, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and Australia, including the Kimberley. The Silversea Expeditions onboard team consists of 11 experts, from expedition leaders, divemasters and marine biologists to historians, geologists and naturalists.

In 2019, Silver Discoverer left the Silversea Expeditions fleet. The vessel's owners, Florida-based SunStone Ships, subsequently announced it had been sold to the French cruise company, CroisiEurope, and will sail under the name La Belle Des Oceans.[10]

Incidents

In July 2002, the ship ran aground on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea but was not damaged.[11] In August 2004, the ship ran aground in the Aleutian Islands near Dutch Harbor and the passengers and crew had to be evacuated.[12] The ship was seriously damaged and 5000 gallons of fuel leaked from the vessel.[13] She returned to service two months later.[11]

References
  1. "Clipper Odyssey". shipspotting.com. Retrieved 26 April 2012.
  2. "CroisiEurope boosts fleet with SunStone Ships' vessel". Riviera Maritime Media. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  3. Fakta om fartyg (in Swedish)
  4. "CroisiEurope Acquires Silver Discoverer". Cruise Industry News. 14 May 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
  5. Slater, Shirley; Basch, Harry (19 September 1999). "Former Lines and Old Ships Are Rising Again". Los Angeles Times.
  6. Jerry Brown; Fran Wenograd Golden (10 January 2008). Frommer's Alaska Cruises & Ports of Call 2008. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 2–. ISBN 978-0-470-16907-0. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  7. http://www.seatrade-insider.com/news/news-headlines/global-launch-of-silverseas-third-expedition-ship-in-sydney.html%5B%5D
  8. Macmillan, Sally (13 April 2014). "The Cruise Director: Silversea's Silver Discoverer". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
  9. Prior, Neale (28 April 2014). "Discover the Kimberley coast". The West Australian. Retrieved 15 May 2014.
  10. "SunStone sells Silver Discoverer to CroisiEurope, puts Sea Spirit on market".
  11. Ross A. Klein (1 October 2005). Cruise ship squeeze: the new pirates of the seven seas. New Society Publishers. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-86571-522-6. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
  12. "Cruise ship runs aground in Alaska". CBC News. 2 August 2004.
  13. "Ocala Star-Banner - Google News Archive Search".
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