Luxury cruise ship that ran aground in Greenland is freed after three days
COPENHAGEN — The luxury cruise ship MV Ocean Explorer was “successfully” pulled free in Greenland on Thursday, three days after running aground with 206 people on board, authorities and the ship’s owner said.
The ship was freed by a fisheries research vessel at high tide, said the cruise ship’s owner, Copenhagen-based SunStone Ships, and the Danish Joint Arctic Command, which had been coordinating the operation.
“There have not been any injuries to anybody on board, no pollution of the environment and no breach of the hull,” SunStone Ships said in a statement. The research vessel that pulled the cruise ship belongs to the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, a government agency, it said.
It said the cruise ship and its passengers will travel to a port where the damage to the vessel’s bottom can be assessed, and the passengers will be taken to a location from where they can be flown home. There was no immediate comment from the tour company that organized the trip, Australia-based Aurora Expeditions.
The cruise ship ran aground above the Arctic Circle on Monday in Alpefjord, which is in Northeast Greenland National Park. The park encompasses almost as much land as France and Spain combined, and about 80% is permanently covered by an ice sheet. Alpefjord sits about 150 miles away from the closest settlement, Ittoqqortoormiit, which itself is nearly 870 miles from the country’s capital, Nuuk.
The Bahamas-flagged cruise ship has passengers from Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Britain and the U.S. It has an inverted bow, shaped like the one on a submarine. It has 77 cabins, 151 passenger beds and 99 beds for crew, and several restaurants.
Scientists now fear increasingly warmer water in daily tides are doing much more damage to one of Greenland’s glaciers than they thought.
Earlier Thursday, Aurora Expeditions said that three passengers had COVID-19.
“These passengers are currently in isolation. They are looked after by our onboard doctor, medical team and crew, and they are doing well,” Aurora Expeditions said in a statement. The others on the MV Ocean Explorer are “safe and healthy,” it added.
The Sydney Morning Herald quoted a retired Australian couple, Steven Fraser and Gina Hill, as saying there were “a lot of wealthy older people” on board.
“Everyone’s in good spirits. It’s a little bit frustrating, but we are in a beautiful part of the world,” Fraser told the paper, adding that he himself had come down with COVID-19 on the ship.
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Cmdr. Brian Jensen of the Joint Arctic Command told Greenland broadcaster KNR that the ship is likely to go to Iceland, the closest place with large ports.
“Now it is exciting to find out what the condition of the ship is,“ Jensen was quoted as saying by KNR. “They are in the process of investigating whether the ship is intact and seaworthy and ready to sail on.”
The ship’s owner said several other vessels had rushed to the scene “and offered their assistance, which, however, was not needed.” It said it had also “arranged additional tug assistance in case it was needed — however, this has now been canceled.”
Dozens of cruise ships sail along Greenland’s coast every year for passengers to admire the picturesque, sometimes-barren mountainous landscape, with fjords and waterways packed with icebergs of different sizes and glaciers jutting out into the sea.
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Danish broadcaster DR said that there were 400 cruises in Greenland in 2022 and 600 cruises in 2023.
The Danish Maritime Authority asked police in Greenland to investigate why the ship ran aground and whether any laws had been violated. So far, no one has been charged or arrested. According to the daily, citing a police statement, an officer had been on board the cruise ship to carry out “initial investigative steps, which, among other things, involve questioning the crew and other relevant persons on board.”
The cruise liner began its latest trip Sept. 2 in Kirkenes, in Arctic Norway, and was due to return to Bergen, Norway, on Sept. 22, according to SunStone Ships.
The primary mission of the Joint Arctic Command is to ensure Danish sovereignty by monitoring the area around the Faroe Islands and Greenland, including the Arctic Ocean in the north. Greenland is a semi-independent territory that is part of the Danish realm, as are the Faroe Islands.
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