Fincantieri has worked on three ships for the new MSC luxury brand Explora Journeys. The Italians are building six units in total.
MSC Cruises, the cruise line owned by Gianluigi Aponte, has created a new luxury brand with Explora Journeys and commissioned six ships for a total of €3.5bn. All of them will be built by Fincantieri in Italy.
The “Explora I” is already sailing and will now be joined by the “Explora II”, which has just been delivered. At the same time, the traditional minting ceremony for the “Explora III” and the first steel cutting for the “Explora IV” took place at the shipyard.
“These ships represent a combination of innovation and sustainability and are part of an important expansion plan for our new European luxury brand,” said Pierfrancesco Vago, Aponte’s son-in-law and CEO of the cruise division of the MSC Group.
Six Explora ships from Fincantieri by 2028
Fincantieri will deliver four more ships to MSC by 2028. The investment in new ships will create a total added value of €15bn in the country, it is said. The construction of each ship requires more than seven million working hours and employs an average of 2,500 people for two to three years.
The Explora Journeys ships are said to represent the state of the art in terms of design and ship technology. All Explora newbuildings are also equipped for the use of bio-LNG and synthetic LNG as soon as these are generally available in the shipping industry. In addition, there are plans to equip the “Explora V” and “Explora VI”, which will be built at the shipyard in Sestri Ponente by 2027 and 2028, with a large fuel cell capable of converting renewable LNG into hydrogen.
