HURTIGRUTEN Expeditions’ battery-hybrid powered Fridtjof Nansen (pictured) has been named in the world’s northernmost naming ceremony for a passenger ship. At latitude 78 north in Svalbard, the local community joined the celebrations of one of the world’s greenest and most advanced cruise ships. Replacing the traditional bottle of champagne with...
HURTIGRUTEN Expeditions’ battery-hybrid powered Fridtjof Nansen (pictured) has been named in the world’s northernmost naming ceremony for a passenger ship.
At latitude 78 north in Svalbard, the local community joined the celebrations of one of the world’s greenest and most advanced cruise ships.
Replacing the traditional bottle of champagne with a chunk of ice, godmothers and environmental advocates Hilde Falun Strom and Sunniva Sorby named Fridtjof Nansen, continuing a Hurtigruten ritual invented by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
As the two crushed the ice against Fridtjof Nansen’s bow, they quoted Amundsen’s words from when he named Maud, a ship specifically built for his second expedition to the Arctic.
“It is not my intention to dishonor the glorious grape, but already now you shall get the taste of your real environment.
“For the ice you have been built, in the ice you shall stay most of your life, and in the ice, you shall solve your tasks,” the pair said.
The traditional godmother gift was also replaced by a joint donation to Sorby and Strom’s Hearts in the Ice project and Hurtigruten Foundation.
In honouring the cruise line’s century-plus-long Svalbard heritage, Fridtjof Nansen is also the first cruise ship ever to be registered in Longyearbyen.
