Fincantieri’s subsidiary VARD has delivered the very exciting and very advanced new ship, Le Commandant Charcot to PONANT, with according to VARD, the unique and state-of-the-art electric hybrid exploration vessel propelled with LNG, developed by PONANT, Stirling Design International, Aker Arctic and VARD.
Le Commandant Charcot has also been especially designed to let passengers to discover the polar world’s extreme unexplored lands such as the geographic North Pole (90 degrees North Latitude), the Weddell Sea, the Ross Sea and Peter I Island.
PONANT says that the Le Commandant Charcot carries Polar Class 2 and will fulfill the highest standards for environmentally friendly and safe operations and it is the first-ever electric hybrid cruise vessel with ice-breaking technology and dual fuel propulsion, featuring high-capacity batteries and LNG storage onboard.
Le Commandant Charcot will accommodate 245 passengers in 123 staterooms, in addition to a crew of 235.
Le Commandant Charcot is named after Jean-Baptiste-Étienne-Auguste Charcot, [pictured] born in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 15 July 1867 and dying on 16 September 1936 and he was a famous French scientist, medical doctor and polar scientist. Jean-Baptiste Charcot was appointed leader of the French Antarctic Expedition with the ship Français exploring the west coast of Graham Land from 1904 until 1907, with the expedition reaching Adelaide Island in 1905 and he took pictures of the Palmer Archipelago and Loubet Coast.
From 
1908 until 1910, another expedition followed with the ship Pourquoi Pas?, exploring the Bellingshausen Sea and the Amundsen Sea and discovering Loubet Land, Marguerite Bay, Mount Boland and Charcot Island, which was named after his father, Jean-Martin Charcot and he named Hugo Island after Victor Hugo, the grandfather of his wife, Jeanne Hugo.
Later on, Jean-Baptiste Charcot explored Rockall in 1921 and Eastern Greenland and Svalbard from 1925 until 1936.
He died when Pourquoi-Pas? was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Iceland in 1936, with a monument to Charcot created in Reykjavík, Iceland by sculptor Einar Jónsson in 1936 and another by Rikarour Jonsson in 1952.
Charcot also participated in many sports, winning two silver medals in sailing at the Summer Olympics of 1900.
A report by John Alwyn-Jones, Cruise Editor, Global Travel Media, and Global Cruise News
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