Ocean Explorer: A luxury cruise ship has been freed after it ran aground in the Greenland Strait

CNN
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The Danish Joint Military Command in the Arctic said on Thursday that a luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the east coast of Greenland earlier this week has been successfully freed.

The Ocean Explorer ship – carrying 206 passengers and crew – ran aground in the Albfjord on Monday. The cruise ship was towed by a fishing research vessel on Thursday morning, JAC said.

The ship had failed in several previous attempts to refloat it, raising fears that it would remain stuck for several days awaiting the arrival of a larger Danish naval ship that was on its way to help.

Earlier, three passengers on board the ship were placed in isolation after contracting Covid-19, the cruise agency Aurora Expeditions, the ship’s operator, announced on Thursday. All other people on board were said to be healthy and safe. She added that neither the ship, its passengers, nor the surrounding waters were in danger due to the accident.

SunStone, the Florida-based ship owner, said Ocean Explorer successfully received assistance from the Tarajoq, a research vessel from Greenland that had been involved in several previous attempts to refloat the cruise ship.

“There were no injuries to anyone on board, no environmental contamination and no hull penetration,” SunStone said in a press release.

The company said it had “arranged additional assistance should it be needed” but has now stopped doing so.

“We would like to thank the charter company Aurora Expeditions as well as all of its passengers for their excellent cooperation in this difficult and unexpected circumstance,” SunStone added.

“The ship and its passengers will now be placed in a port where the damage to the bottom of the ship can be assessed, and the passengers will be transferred to a port from which they can be repatriated.”

TThe company did not specify what this port is.

As the ship waited for help, one of the passengers, named only as Liz, joked that the main fear on board was running out of alcohol.

“That’s my biggest concern,” she told CNN affiliate Nine News.

“I took swimming lessons before I came and I’m a good swimmer. So beware: I might come back swimming to Iceland.

Another passenger, Tracy Varga of Phoenix, Arizona, told CNN on Thursday while the cruise ship was still stuck that “for the most part,” everyone on the ship was positive and most were “taking it in their stride.”

Varga said there was no panic among passengers.

She said the staff did a good job trying to entertain passengers. “Today they are offering a towel folding workshop to learn some towel folding,” she said.

Australian Debbie Brown, also stuck on the Ocean Explorer, told CNN she thought morale on board was “reasonably good” and that seeing the northern lights the past two nights was “exciting.”

The Ocean Explorer ship has made several failed attempts to free itself from tidal currents in the past few days, according to a statement from Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command (JAC).

During high tide on Wednesday, a fishing research vessel, Trajok, owned by the Greenlandic government, attempted to dislodge the cruise ship, but failed to do so, JAC confirmed to CNN on Wednesday.

A larger Danish naval ship, the Knud Rasmussen, was sent to assist. According to the JAC, but faced a journey of 1,200 nautical miles (about 2,222 kilometers) to reach the cruise ship. He was not scheduled to arrive until late Friday.

“Once we realized Ocean Explorer couldn’t get free on its own, we sent a ship toward the wreck,” Arctic Commander Brian Jensen said.

Danish military personnel boarded the cruise ship on Tuesday and said all 206 people on board were “in good condition,” according to the Danish Armed Forces on Wednesday.

The ship was “specially designed for exploratory travel to the world’s most remote destinations,” according to the website Official Website For Aurora missions.

CNN’s Tamara Hardingham Gill also contributed to this story.