Hanseatic

Hanseatic is a very well-known name in German passenger ship history, this ship is the fourth large ship that sails under this name. Well, she is not exactly to be called large, her tonnage measurement is just 8378 and she has a lenght of 122,83 meters, she is 18 meters wide and her draft is 4,90 meters. The ship can sail with 184 passengers and 125 crewmembers in only outside cabins. Her normal cruising speed is just 16 knots, but her passenger mostly do not care that much for speed because they sail the ship to see a lot of the remote seas she sails. In fact, Hanseatic is the only expedition-cruisevessel in the world that has a five-star rating. The cabins are very spacious and you can tell of her passenger to crew ratio, almost 1 to 1, that her guests are treated quite well. The ship is known to have a very informal and personal atmosphere and she is just a great way to explore the icy waters of this world.

Besides her luxury, Hanseatic is also quite unique being one of few passengerships that are classified in the E4 icebreaking class, the highest of these classes for ships capable of sailing through ice. Because of this, she has a very strong hull and we will see later on that this helped her a lot in her lifetime.

The ship was built at the Rauma-Repola wharf at Rauma, Finland and her yardnumber was 306. She was launched at the 1st of may 1991 under the name Society Adventurer and she was built for the Discoverer Reederei of Bremen, Germany. At the 1st of june 1991 the ship was delivered to the Society Adventurer Shipping Company, that was registered at The Bahama's with her homeport being Nassau. At the 23th of march 1993, Society Adventurer was chartered to the German company Hanseatic Tours and she was renamed Hanseatic for them. Her first cruise was from Hamburg to Sevilla, Spain, departing Hamburg at the 27th of march that year. 

Hanseatic is a small ship, but she still has a lot to offer for her passengers, besides her luxury and unique cruisedestinations. Of course there is a lounge for lectures given by professional lecturers about the destinations, about nature or culture. Next to this, there is one restaurant aboard, several other lounges besides the lounge for lectures, of course a library, a sauna, a heated outside swimmingpool, a beautysalon, a boutique and a fitnesscenter. No discoteque, central park, rock climbing wall of shopping streets, but that is not really what her passengers expect. When possible, excursions are offered to the passengers on one of the 14 motorized rubber zodiacs to the jungle, lagoons or pinquin colonies. Next to this, passengers can also use bicycles, rubber boots or diving equipment.

The Hanseatic had a little misfortune at the 29th of august 1996, when she ran aground in the Simpson Strait near King William Island in the north of Canada. At the 5th of september, her passengers were transferred to the Russian icebreaker Kapitan Dranitsyn and the Hanseatic was refloated three days later, before she was repaired in Canada. This all happened just before HAPAG-Lloyd took over Hanseatic Tours, although the name of Hanseatic Tours was retained and the ship also did not recieve the normal funnelcolours of HAPAG-Lloyd. This was also not changed, because Hanseatic Tours uses the classic funnelcolours of the old Hamburg Atlantic Line/ German Atlantic Line. These colours were used on their transatlantic ship Hanseatic as well as on its replacement ship Hamburg, the spaceship of 1969, that is also featured on this website as Maxim Gorkiy. Sadly but understandably, Hanseatic Tours was finally absorbed into HAPAG-Lloyd in june 2011 to the full so the old German Atlantic Line logo was off the seas. Well, not totally though, to save it for at least a bit, it is retained on the ships nameboard outside the observation lounge on either side. Besides, it will be retained as a product logo aboard the ship.

At the 13th of july 1997, the ship again ran aground, this time near the Hinlopenfjord at Spitsbergen, Norway. At the 17th of that month, she was again refloated and repaired and after this it took somewhat longer before she again ran aground at the 23rd of august of 2005. Now, she has chosen a spot near Luroy in Norway to stay a little longer than planned. Also, this time the damage was severe, she had struck a hole of five meters in her hull, but was able to land her passengers at Bodo, before again being repaired. But all these groundings can be explained when you keep in mind that this little ship was designed for expedition cruises around the worlds most remote places, mostly close the the North Pole and the Antarctic. Waters here are more treasurous then the waters in the Mediterranean of Caribbean so it is more likely for a ship to get into trouble here. 

But icy waters are not the only waters she sails in. Her cruises also take her to more exotic destinations like the Amazon river, Orinoco and the Pacific islands. Also, she sails the more classic cruisedestinations in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, South America and western Europe. 

Pictures were shot at Amsterdam at the 26th of may 2011.