| IMO | 8806747 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 6,130 GT |
| Length | 108.11 m |
| Beam | 15.6 m |
| Passenger capacity (max) | 132 |
| Service speed | 17.0 knots |
| Builder | Rauma-Repola |
| Hull number | 304 |
| Launched | 1989 |
| Maiden voyage | 1989 |
| Operator | Exploris |
| Status | Active |
| All names | Exploris One; Delfin Clipper; Sally Clipper; Baltic Clipper; Delfin Star; Dream 21; World Discoverer; World Adventurer; Prince Albert II; Silver Explorer |
Overview
Exploris One is a small, ice-strengthened expedition cruise ship whose career has lasted far longer, and passed through far more hands, than her modest size might suggest. Launched in 1989 as Delfin Clipper, she was described in her own history as the first luxury cruise vessel built at the Rauma yard in Finland. From that Baltic beginning she moved, name by name, through short-sea and conference cruising, then into the hands of Society Expeditions, then — after a major refit — into luxury expedition cruising as Silversea's first expedition ship, first as Prince Albert II and then as Silver Explorer. Her final name in the dataset, Exploris One, dates from her transfer in 2023 to the French company Exploris.
That long chain of names is not cosmetic. Each rename marked a real change of market: from a small Finnish cruise ship with many single cabins aimed partly at conference traffic, to a polar expedition vessel carrying a fleet of inflatable landing craft and an expedition team. Few ships of 6,000 tons have reinvented themselves so often, or so successfully, and that adaptability is the central fact of her story.
Key specifications
The dataset records her at 6,130 GT, 108.11 m long and 15.6 m in beam, with a maximum capacity of 132 passengers and a speed of 17.0 knots. Those figures describe the ship as she was configured for luxury expedition work, in particular after the Silversea refit reduced her accommodation from a much higher original number to 132.
Her own reference history gives closely related but not identical figures — a tonnage around 6,158 GT and a lower service speed in some listings — so the dataset figures are used here as the spec of record. What is not in dispute is her ice rating: she is an Ice Class 1A vessel, a Finnish-Swedish rating that underpins her whole expedition career, and her twin Wärtsilä diesel installation driving two controllable-pitch propellers.
Design and construction
She was built by Rauma-Repola at Rauma, Finland, as hull 304, ordered in 1986, laid down in October 1988 and launched on 3 February 1989, with completion in June 1989. The design brief was unusual for its time and place: a genuinely luxurious small cruise ship from a yard better known for other work, intended to operate in northern waters.
As built, she was a very different ship internally from the expedition vessel she became. Contemporary accounts describe a large number of cabins — many of them single, aimed at conference passengers — including suites with private Jacuzzis, plus conference seating, a shop and casino, a nightclub, a beauty salon, a medical unit, and a sauna, Jacuzzi and swimming pool. Her five passenger decks and compact hull made her manageable in small ports, while the ice-strengthened hull gave her a second, latent career that her first owners did not fully exploit.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She entered service in 1989 as Delfin Clipper for Delfin Cruises, handed over on 1 June 1989 according to her reference history. There is no single famous naming ceremony attached to the original ship in the sources used here; her celebrity naming came much later, in Monte Carlo in June 2008, when, after her Silversea refit, she was renamed Prince Albert II in the presence of Prince Albert II of Monaco, whose name she carried. In April 2011 she was renamed again, to Silver Explorer, to bring her into line with Silversea's naming pattern.
Her Exploris One maiden voyage is the best documented of her later starts: after transfer to Exploris in September 2023 and Silversea's final cruise ending in November 2023, she departed Valparaíso on 23 December 2023 on her first sailing under the Exploris name.
Career by operator
The table summarises the name sequence recorded in the dataset, with the operators established by her reference history. Dates are as given in that history; some early charter periods overlap in published accounts.
| Period | Name | Operator / note |
|---|---|---|
| 1989–1990 | Delfin Clipper | Delfin Cruises |
| 1990–1992 | Sally Clipper | Chartered to Sally Cruise |
| 1992 | Baltic Clipper | Baltic Link |
| 1992–1997 | Delfin Star | Delfin |
| 1997–2002 | Dream 21 | — |
| 2002–2004 | World Discoverer | Society Expeditions |
| 2004–2005 | World Adventurer | Society Expeditions |
| 2005–2008 | World Discoverer | Society Expeditions, to 2007 |
| 2008–2011 | Prince Albert II | Silversea Cruises |
| 2011–2023 | Silver Explorer | Silversea Cruises |
| 2023– | Exploris One | Exploris |
Society Expeditions' period was turbulent: the ship was seized by a mortgage-holding bank in 2003, bought by Society Expeditions International, seized again by creditors in June 2004, and caught up in that company's bankruptcy. Silversea's purchase in autumn 2007 gave her stability, a multimillion-pound refit at Fincantieri, Trieste, and fifteen years in one fleet — by far her longest settled period.
Onboard character
Her era-defining character changed once, decisively, in 2008. Before that she was a small, fairly conventional cruise ship with conference facilities. After the Silversea refit she became a template for luxury expedition cruising: far fewer passengers in larger cabins, most around 19 square metres with suites considerably larger, an expedition team rather than an entertainment programme, and a fleet of Zodiac inflatables — fourteen by 2019 — as the real means of going ashore. A further interior refurbishment in 2017 reworked the suites again, raising the listed capacity to 144 in 72 cabins in that configuration.
The point to keep is the model, not any later amenity list: a small ice-class hull, a high crew and guide presence for the passenger number, and days structured around landings and lectures rather than around the ship as a resort.
Major refits and incidents
The defining refit was Silversea's in 2007–08, which cut passenger accommodation from about 175 to 132 and rebuilt her for polar work. The 2017 refurbishment was the second major interior programme.
Recorded incidents are modest for a polar ship. In June 2019 a fishing net entangled in Bering Sea waters damaged a propeller and forced a drydocking for repairs. In March 2020, during the early COVID-19 pandemic, she docked at Castro, Chile, with passengers and crew aboard after an 83-year-old passenger tested positive — an episode recorded at the time as part of the wider pandemic disruption of cruising, not as a failing of the ship herself.
Sister ships and class
She has no widely recognised sister ship in service under a shared class name. The useful comparison is with the other Rauma-built expedition hull of the same era in this directory, Heritage Adventurer (hull 306, against her hull 304): two Finnish ice-strengthened expedition ships from the same yard, built two years apart, whose careers later converged in the same small expedition market.
Fate and where she is now
The dataset records her status simply as active and operating as Exploris One. Later developments reported after that dataset position should be read as a postscript: Exploris was liquidated in November 2025, the ship was sold at auction in Nantes in January 2026 for a reported €4.5 million to the Nordic Group, and in February 2026 Heritage Expeditions announced that she would join its fleet as Heritage Discoverer, with voyages planned from May 2027. On either account she has not been scrapped: a 1989 hull that began as Delfin Clipper remains, at the time of writing, an expedition ship with a further career planned.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploris_One