At Sea with Doug Newman

It’s now been a week since GAP Adventures‘ Explorer sank in the Antarctic, one of the most sensational events to hit the cruise business in years. The “little red ship” was one of the most important cruise ships in history; the seminal expedition cruise ship, she was to expedition cruising what Royal Caribbean’s Song of Norway was to the rest of the cruising world, or maybe even more.

To that end, the good people at Lindblad Expeditions have posted an article, “Remembering the ‘Little Red Ship’” that I highly recommend. Explorer was built as Lindblad Explorer for Lars-Erik Lindblad’s Lindblad Travel, the expedition travel pioneer; his son Sven-Olof Lindblad runs Lindblad Expeditions. Lindblad sold Explorer in 1982 but the current Lindblad flagship, National Geographic Endeavour, was one of the first ships on the scene and assisted in the rescue effort. Sven Lindblad recounts his experience of the Explorer accident as the son of the ship’s original owner, a guy who literally grew up with the ship, and who now owned one of the ships that was responding to the situation. You can also read a direct report from National Geographic Endeavour recounting that ship’s response as part of Lindblad’s superb “Daily Expedition Report” feature.

Sadly, I can’t say as many nice things about this statement from GAP Adventures’ CEO Bruce Poon Tip. Part of his statement is as follows:

“She couldn’t just go quietly in the night but instead, was hanging on and danced her way out of commission. She made everyone watch for just a minute to remember her history as she hung on long enough to allow all of her passengers to disembark to safety. I would expect nothing less from her.“

Mr. Tip’s statement shows an astonishingly naive and foolish attitude towards the accident. He seems positively happy that the ship went down, like it was an extra bonus in her passengers “adventure travel” experience. I cannot stress this enough: Mr. Tip, this is absolutely not what adventure travel is about! I doubt your passengers or indeed your crew knew when they were signing on that they were trusting their lives to a company who seems to think that sinking ships are “just part of the fun”. But you have now revealed your true attitude and you deserve whatever you get.

Can you imagine an airline praising its passengers’ “spirit of adventure” after a crash — even if nobody was hurt? I have no reason to criticize GAP Adventures’ conduct in the accident itself, but a very big thumbs down to Mr. Tip and his company for releasing this appalling statement. His flowery rhetoric exhibits a flagrant disregard for the seriousness of the situation. He seems blissfully ignorant that over one hundred passengers and crew’s lives were in danger, not to mention the environmental damage of leaving a shipwreck in this sensitive environment, reflects very poorly on Mr. Tip and GAP. Of course, thanks to those who helped rescue the passengers and crew, which Mr. Tip also offered, are in order, but any responsible company would also offer its regrets that the accident happened. Nowhere does Mr. Tip offer them, nor can they be found anywhere on the company’s Explorer news page. Never before have I seen such an appalling response from any company in the wake of an incident like this one. However admirable the company’s actions in helping its passengers may be (and no reports have yet indicated they were in any way deficient), I urge the press to strongly condemn Mr. Tip’s statement and the responsible members of the travel industry (and particularly the “adventure” sector) should do everything possible to distance themselves from it. This sort of attitude is spectacularly detrimental to our industry and should not be tolerated.