Cruise & Ferry Review - Autumn/Winter 2021

6 2 INTERV IEW “ Since 2004, it has been our strategy to focus purely on small-ship, luxury expedition cruising” F or shipowner SunStone Ships, the Covid-19 pandemic has been a testing time. Like the rest of the cruise industry, it has had to deal with a long period of disruption, during which its ships have remained laid up in port. And though the progress of vaccination programmes around the world has begun to ease pressure somewhat, the very specific and remote areas in which its expedition ships usually sail means that this disruption is still ongoing. “At the moment, we do not have the option of operating in the areas we would normally visit,” says Niels Erik-Lund, CEO of SunStone Ships. “Canada, for example, has closed its borders for oceangoing ships until February next year. We did manage four roundtrip cruises around Iceland and had hoped to continue the season with sailings to Greenland. Unfortunately, Greenland has not opened, and we had to cancel the rest of the season. In total, we have had three seasons so far without operation, which has been very difficult.” However, this has not stopped the shipowner from looking towards the future. Construction has continued on the Infinity-class series of ships, with the latest ship to enter service being Ocean Explorer in July 2021. After departing the shipyard in Haimen, China, she sailed to Poole in the UK for her inaugural cruise. She has now been redeployed to America,, before eventually moving to Antarctica at the end of the year. “Ocean Explorer will do a number of trips from Boston, Massachusetts, down the east coast to Nassau in The Bahamas, before going down to Antarctica for the winter,” explains Lund. “Antarctica would normally be our busiest region, with up Forging ahead Niels-Erik Lund explains how SunStone Ships is continuing to develop after the challenges of the pandemic to Alex Smith