Cruise News - Maritime News

Viking® announced its second expedition ship—the 378-guest Viking Polaris®—was “floated out,” marking a major construction milestone and the first time that the new ship touches water.

Scheduled to debut in summer 2022, Viking Polaris will spend her maiden season sailing voyages to the Arctic and Antarctica; her identical sister ship, Viking Octantis®, was floated out last December and is set to debut in early 2022 for journeys to Antarctica and North America’s Great Lakes. Viking has also developed a series of short videos about the new expedition voyages, ship design and prestigious scientific partnerships, which can be found on its website here.

“We are now one step closer to our launch of ‘the thinking person’s expedition,’ with new voyages that will allow our guests to explore the ends of the world and closer to home—in comfort,” said Torstein Hagen, Chairman of Viking. “We are grateful for our long-standing partnership with Fincantieri, who has helped us build the world’s most beautiful ocean ships and are now helping us perfect expedition cruising. We look forward to welcoming guests on board Viking Polaris and Viking Octantis next year.”

The float out is significant because it denotes a ship moving into its final stage of construction. The float out ceremony of Viking Polaris took place July 27; she was then moved to a nearby outfitting dock for further construction and interior build-out. After final outfitting, Viking Polaris will be delivered at Fincantieri’s VARD shipyard in Søviknes, Norway.