Inspired by the sleek contours of a sailing yacht and designed to glide through ocean currents with ease, Scenic Eclipse is built to the highest international safety standards, utilising state-of-the-art technology and GPS dynamic positioning, plus a host of safety features including stabiliser fins.
A rating of Polar Class 6, the highest of any luxury vessel, enables the safest navigation through Arctic and Antarctic waters.
See the timeline of Scenic Eclipse below.
We are proud to reveal the stunning footage of Scenic Eclipse, The World's First Discovery Yachts™ coming into the port of Valletta, Malta, giving guests their first taste of the excitement and emotion they could experience on their voyage with Scenic Eclipse.
“Coming into port on any cruise ship is spectacular”, said Captain Griffiths, Captain Scenic Eclipse. “It is the first glimpse guests get of the city and country they are stopping in. There is a real sense of excitement and anticipation. Coming in on a ship like Scenic Eclipse will be even more exciting, as its size allows access to many ports that larger ships are not able to enter meaning our guests will, in many instances, have a truly unique arrival experience.”
Scenic Luxury Cruises & Tours has today announced that Scenic Eclipse, the World’s First Discovery Yachts, continues to move closer to her official launch on August 15 2019, with the successful completion of extensive sea trials.
With sea trials complete, Scenic Eclipse will now undergo the final touches to its interior and exterior and the final training of the onboard teams before the official launch and commencement of schedule of sailings.
We are very pleased to report that build progress in all areas of Scenic Eclipse has been moving along well.
We did have to deal with a week long shipyard workers’ strike that took place at the end of March, resulting in a near halt to work onboard. Although this strike did not involve any of the workers assigned to Scenic Eclipse, it did cause a delay in some commissioning and other works onboard as most of our sub contractors were prevented from boarding the ship.
To make up for this short interruption, we have extended shifts during the week and increased weekend workers capacity in order to regain lost time and are currently at full production. We are confident the build schedule will progress as planned and Scenic Eclipse will launch on time.
All mechanical systems are complete with commissioning progressing well. All four main engines have been fully load tested and the ship is now operating under its own power. The highly efficient ABB Azipod propulsion system commissioning is progressing well with starboard pod providing thrust in harbour testing.
Scenic Eclipse’s first sea trial is planned for the end of May and further updates will be given at that time.
In a positive development for the Scenic Eclipse build and the Uljanik Group, a consortium comprised of the Croatian DIV group and Italian Shipyard Fincantieri was confirmed on 7 February as the new owner of Uljanik. Accordingly, Scenic is confident that these new owners will bring stability and focus to both current and future ship builds. The Scenic Group has signed a letter of intent with the new consortium that will lead the shipyard to set up a new Discovery Yacht division within the restructured Uljanik group.
This new joint venture will be fully focused on completing Scenic Eclipse by our revised 15 August launch date, and on expediting the build of the second Scenic Eclipse, as well as progressing development of the next generations of Scenic’s Discovery Yachts.
In spite of the very real challenges that the shipyard is facing, we continue to have a committed, expert workforce in the shipyard who are dedicated to completing Scenic Eclipse for the first cruise of April 2019.
As you can see from the video and time lapse images, there are only a few balconies and the heli deck to mount and then the hull and superstructure will be complete. Please note that the scaffolding around the ship is for workers to prepare the hull for final painting.
There are over 700 workers on day shifts during the week, over 150 on evening shifts and 450 on Saturdays, so the interior fit-out continues at pace and the engine and associated systems commissioning has commenced.
Following the extraordinary global interest in Scenic’s soon-to-launch 6-star Scenic Eclipse, Scenic has announced that the fleet will expand to two ships.
The second ship will launch in 2020, and will enable the fleet to expand its itineraries including the European and Russian Arctic, Russia’s White Sea, the Northwest Passage, Southern Greenland and Alaska to Russia across the Bering Sea.
