| IMO | 9111319 |
|---|---|
| Gross tonnage | 19,170 GT |
| Length | 153.0 m |
| Beam | 22 m |
| Passenger capacity (double) | 318 |
| Crew | 215 |
| Service speed | 18 knots |
| Builder | Chantiers de l'Atlantique |
| Hull number | G31 |
| Launched | 1997 |
| Maiden voyage | 1997 |
| Operator | Ponant |
| Status | Active |
Overview
Paul Gauguin is a small, purpose-built luxury cruise ship completed in 1997 for year-round service in French Polynesia. She was drawn for it — shallow in draught at about 5.2 m so she could work lagoons and atolls larger ships cannot enter, modest at about 19,200 GT and roughly 330 guests, and crewed at a high ratio for the top end of the market. Named for the painter Paul Gauguin, who lived and painted in Polynesia for the last decade of his life, she has spent essentially her whole career in the South Pacific.
That single-destination career makes her unusual in this directory. Most luxury ships roam; Paul Gauguin stayed. Under Radisson Seven Seas Cruises (later Regent Seven Seas), then under Pacific Beachcomber's Paul Gauguin Cruises from 2010, and since 2019 as part of the French line Ponant, the ship and the destination have been inseparable — so much so that the cruise line itself took the ship's name and, for most of its life, operated no other vessel.
The dataset records her current operator as Regent Seven Seas Cruises. That is more than a decade out of date and is corrected below and logged: Regent's operation ended in 2010, and her operator today is Paul Gauguin Cruises under Ponant.
Key specifications
The dataset gives IMO 9111319, 19,170 GT, 153.0 m in length, Chantiers de l'Atlantique hull G31, launched 1998 and maiden voyage 1997. The launch and maiden dates as recorded are impossible — a ship cannot sail a maiden voyage the year before she is launched — and her own article resolves them: launched 25 April 1997, delivered 1 December 1997, christened that December. The spec box therefore uses launched 1997, and the dataset's 1998 is logged as an error. (Some Ponant material dates delivery to 1998, reflecting her first full season; the Miramar-backed article dates are followed here.)
Her article record gives 19,200 GT against the dataset's 19,170 GT — a trivial variation, so the dataset figure is kept in the box. Length is 154 m in her article (dataset 153.0 m, rounding), beam 22 m and draught 5.2 m, both blank in the dataset. She has seven passenger decks, a diesel-electric plant giving 18 knots maximum, capacity of about 318–330 guests and a crew of about 215–217 — roughly one crew member for every one and a half guests, a defining specification for this ship.
Design and construction
Paul Gauguin was built by Chantiers de l'Atlantique at Saint-Nazaire, France, as hull G31. She was launched on 25 April 1997 and completed and delivered on 1 December 1997 to Services et Transports Tahiti of Mata-Utu, French Polynesia, the owning entity for her Tahiti operation.
The design brief was Polynesia itself. A draught of only about 5.2 m lets her enter shallow lagoons and anchor close in at atolls, and a retractable marina platform at the stern for swimming and water sports, carried from new, belongs to the same brief: the ship was built to put guests into the sea alongside her, not to carry them past it. Accommodation was all-outside from the start — there are no inside cabins — with a high proportion of balconies, in a low, yacht-like superstructure. Stirling Design International has led her later interior renewals, keeping the Polynesian material language of light woods, woven textiles and island artwork.
Naming, launch and maiden voyage
She was named for Paul Gauguin from the outset and has never carried another name. The naming was enacted twice over. She was launched under the name on 25 April 1997 at Saint-Nazaire. After delivery she crossed to Florida and was christened at Port Everglades on 18 December 1997 — CruiseMapper records the ceremony on 19 December — with Carole Poylo, wife of the ship's architect François-Xavier Poylo, as godmother, and Maria Gauguin, the painter's granddaughter, attending. She sailed for the Pacific the following day to begin her Tahiti service.
Her maiden season belongs to the turn of 1997–98: delivered and christened in December 1997, in Polynesian service from the start of 1998 in most commercial accounts. The dataset's 1997 maiden-voyage year is retained in the box with that chronology stated here.
Career by operator
The ship's name never changed; her operator changed three times, and the cruise line built around her changed hands with her. The dataset's operator history (Regent Seven Seas Cruises; Paul Gauguin Cruises) omits both the Radisson branding of her first years and the Ponant ownership of her current era.
| Period | Name | Operator |
|---|---|---|
| 1997–2010 | Paul Gauguin | Radisson Seven Seas Cruises (renamed Regent Seven Seas Cruises in 2006) |
| 2010–2019 | Paul Gauguin | Paul Gauguin Cruises (Pacific Beachcomber / Beachcomber Croisières) |
| 2019–present | Paul Gauguin | Paul Gauguin Cruises, part of Ponant (Compagnie du Ponant) |
In detail: Radisson Seven Seas operated her from 1998 to 2010, latterly under the Regent name. Pacific Beachcomber acquired the operation in 2009 and took it over in January 2010, running her as the sole vessel of Paul Gauguin Cruises — briefly joined by Tere Moana from December 2012 to 2015. In August 2019 Ponant acquired Paul Gauguin Cruises; brand and ship were retained, and Ponant re-registered her in Wallis and Futuna in July 2020, returning her to the French flag.
Onboard character
Paul Gauguin's character is Polynesian immersion on a small ship. The defining feature is not a venue but a company of people: Les Gauguines and Les Gauguins, the Polynesian hosts and entertainers who serve as activity staff, performers and cultural ambassadors, and who have been part of the ship's identity since the Regent years. Around them, the ship's public life — three restaurants including the French La Veranda and the poolside Le Grill, a small spa, a single pool deck and the stern marina — is scaled to 330 guests who mostly know the crew by the second day.
The design language follows the destination: natural fibres, woods, island art and an easy indoor-outdoor flow suited to a ship that anchors in lagoons more than it docks at terminals. She is the opposite of the district megaship: one destination, one small hull, and a character that depends on continuity of place and crew rather than on novelty of hardware.
Major refits and incidents
Her refit history is a steady cadence rather than a single rebuild. A refurbishment in 2012, reported at $7 million under Pacific Beachcomber, refreshed the ship for the standalone Paul Gauguin Cruises era. Under Ponant she was converted to low-sulphur marine gas oil in place of heavy fuel, announced in 2019, and dry-docked in Singapore in February–March 2021 for a full renovation of staterooms and public areas — lounges, bars, restaurants, wellness spaces, shop, lobby and pool deck — with warmer natural tones and energy-saving technical work.
The largest recent work was the seven-week Singapore refit of February–March 2025: a complete renovation of Le Grill and the pool deck with shaded cabanas, eight new connecting staterooms, soft-furnishing renewal throughout, and substantial sustainability machinery — heat recovery, efficient chillers, an Organic Rankine Cycle system generating electricity from waste heat, optimised motors and onboard freshwater production to cut plastic bottle use. The funnel gained Ponant's three-sail logo.
Her one widely reported incident is operational, not marine: in August 2020, days after her post-pandemic restart, a passenger tested positive for COVID-19 on board. The ship abandoned her next call, returned to Papeete, and 148 passengers and 192 crew were confined while testing was completed. No grounding, fire or collision is recorded for her in the sources used.
Sister ships and class
Paul Gauguin is a one-off. She has no sister ship: hull G31 was a single-ship design for the Tahiti trade, and no second hull was built to it. Her nearest fleet relationships are managerial, not naval — Tere Moana operated alongside her from 2012 to 2015 — and her uniqueness is part of why she has been kept and repeatedly refitted rather than replaced.
Fate and where she is now
Paul Gauguin is in active service, status active in the dataset, operated by Paul Gauguin Cruises as part of Ponant in French Polynesia. The 2025 refit — a multi-million-dollar investment in a 28-year-old hull — is the clearest evidence of her expected fate: continued service as the specialist Tahiti ship, with no withdrawal announced in the sources used.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cruise_ships, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin_(ship), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin_Cruises, Ponant 2025 renovation release (ponant.com), CruiseMapper ship record for Paul Gauguin