At Sea with Doug Newman

Today came the not-totally-unexpected announcement that former P&O Chairman Lord Sterling has sold Swan Hellenic to All Leisure Group plc, parent company of Voyages of Discovery.

Swan will return in May 2008 with the Explorer II, the former Minerva (the only ship ever built specifically for Swan Hellenic). Voyages of Discovery had already secured a long-term charter of the ship from her owners, V.Holdings, and planned to introduce the ship under its own banner next year. Instead, she will return to the newly-resurrected Swan Hellenic.

This will undoubtedly please innumerable Swan loyalists out there, many of whom greatly preferred Minerva to the much larger Minerva II (ex R Eight, now Royal Princess) that replaced her.

According to this article in Travel Trade Gazette, Lord Sterling will remain as Chairman of Swan Hellenic, and “will be joined at All Leisure by senior members of Swan’s previous management team.”

It also states that All Leisure Chairman Roger Allard “will continue to look for more ships for the group, and is considering expanding Swan Hellenic into river cruising.” Lord Sterling had already stated that he hoped to return Swan to river cruising (something it had been successful at in the past). As for further ships, it is unclear whether these would be for Voyages of Discovery, Swan Hellenic or both. Pacific, sister of Voyages of Discovery’s ship, Discovery, is for sale by her American owner, SeaHawk Group, which charters her to Pullmantur, but it is unknown whether All Leisure is interested in that vessel.

Also of interest is a Seatrade Insider article that states that the ship will operate Antarctica cruises for Swan in the winter of 2008-2009. It is unknown how this will affect the ship’s planned winter time-charter from Voyages of Discovery to Abercrombie & Kent (who, in turn, would charter the ship for several cruises to Regent Seven Seas Cruises).

A short notice regarding the Swan Hellenic acquisition has been posted here on the Voyages of Discovery web site. According to the notice, a brochure is “expected shortly”.