Clipper Odyssey

Overview

The expedition ship recorded in the dataset as Clipper Odyssey is one of the most renamed small cruise ships still in service — and the dataset row, which lists only the Clipper Odyssey name and a Clipper Group operator, captures only the middle chapter of her life. She was built in Japan in 1989 as Oceanic Grace, became Oceanic Odyssey for Spice Islands Cruises, took the Clipper Odyssey name with Clipper Cruise Line in 1999, was refurbished into Silversea's expedition fleet as Silver Discoverer in 2014, and since 2019 has sailed for the French line CroisiEurope as La Belle des Océans. The full chain is set out in section 5 and the dataset's stale name and operator are logged in the batch notes. Through every identity she has remained the same kind of ship: a yacht-scale, destination-intensive expedition vessel of about 5,200 GT carrying roughly 120–130 guests to places resort ships cannot reach.

Key specifications

Dataset figures are 5,218 GT and 104.0 m in length, built by NKK as hull 112. Her own article, published under her current name La Belle des Océans, refines these: length 102.97 m, beam 15.42 m, draught 4.13 m, seven decks, capacity 130 passengers and a crew of 73. The shallow draught — barely four metres — is the operational key to the design, allowing her to work anchorages, reef coasts and small harbours closed to deeper ships. All cabins are outside cabins, with a small number of balcony rooms and a single suite, arranged in five categories.

Design and construction

She was built by NKK's Tsu Works at Tsu, Japan, as yard number 112: laid down on 22 August 1988, launched on 31 October 1988 and completed in April 1989 for the Japanese market. The concept was set at build and never changed: a small, fin-stabilised expedition ship for destination-intensive cruising, trading onboard spectacle for access. Her expedition equipment in Silversea configuration typified the type — a fleet of 12 Zodiac inflatables and a glass-bottom boat for marine exploration, a lecture room for the briefing-centred daily programme, and (in earlier years) a decompression chamber for dive operations, since removed.

Naming, launch and maiden voyage

She entered service in 1989 as Oceanic Grace, a name in the Japanese domestic luxury idiom of the period. Each subsequent name marks a change of market rather than a change of ship: Oceanic Odyssey under Indonesian ownership, Clipper Odyssey for the American expedition market, Silver Discoverer for Silversea's luxury expedition brand — she was rechristened in Singapore by Elda Turco Bulgherini before entering Silversea service on 1 March 2014 — and La Belle des Océans for CroisiEurope's French-speaking market from 2019. Her registry followed the same arc, from Nassau, Bahamas, throughout her first three decades to Brussels, Belgium, from 2019.

Career by operator

The dataset's operator history — "Clipper Group; CroisiEurope" — gestures at the first and last of these without the names that connect them. The Clipper years made her reputation in the expedition world, including long seasons chartered to specialist operators such as Zegrahm Expeditions (the charter the dataset's fate field records). Silversea bought her in a deal announced on 10 September 2013, extensively refitted her, and deployed her across the remote Pacific, the Russian Far East and Australia's Kimberley coast with an 11-strong expedition team of dive masters, marine biologists, historians, geologists and naturalists. In 2019 she left the Silversea fleet and was sold by SunStone Ships to CroisiEurope.

Onboard character

Her character is defined by smallness done deliberately: about 130 guests, all-outside cabins, single-meal-sitting intimacy, a panoramic lounge and lecture room as the social centre, and experts rather than entertainers as the ship's public staff. Contemporary descriptions of her Clipper years stress teak decks, a library and lounges, a small pool and gym — "all the amenities of a larger ship" at yacht scale. It is the classic first-generation expedition formula, from before purpose-built polar ships with ice-class hulls and balcony fleets redefined the segment.

Major refits and incidents

The major refit was the 2013–14 conversion for Silversea, which installed the expedition configuration described above. Her incident record belongs to her Clipper years in Alaska and the Bering Sea: in July 2002 she ran aground on St. Matthew Island in the Bering Sea without damage; in August 2004 she grounded in the Aleutian Islands near Dutch Harbor, passengers and crew were evacuated, the ship was seriously damaged and about 5,000 gallons of fuel leaked; she returned to service about two months later.

Sister ships and class

She is a one-off design with no sister ships — a single-hull Japanese build whose longevity has come from the versatility of the small expedition platform rather than from any class economy. Comparisons belong to her segment, not her family: the generation of small converted and purpose-built expedition ships that worked Alaska, the South Pacific and the Russian Far East in the 1990s and 2000s.

Fate and where she is now

Still active, under her fifth name. As La Belle des Océans for CroisiEurope she remains in service — the hull the dataset calls Clipper Odyssey has now spent longer under her other names combined than she did as Clipper Odyssey herself. The dataset's "active" status is correct; its name and operator are a decade and more out of date, as logged in the batch notes.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Belle_Des_Oceans