Swan Hellenic · Polar Class 5 · 152 guests
SH Vega
Named for Nordenskiöld’s barque, the first ship to sail from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the top of the world, and built in Helsinki to return to the high Arctic with 152 guests. The sister we send to Greenland and the Canadian Arctic.
Swan Hellenic
Named for a ship that found a way through.
In July 1878 Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld sailed out of Tromsø in a 43-metre barque called Vega, froze in for ten months short of the Bering Strait, and in the summer of 1879 became the first to pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the top of the world. Her namesake left Tromsø on 20 July 2022 with a Polar Class 5 hull, 152 guests and 120 crew. She is the smaller of the two Swan Hellenic sisters in the Arctic, and the one we send where small matters: the fjords of East Greenland, the settlements of Baffin Island, the Labrador coast in September.
Croker Bay, Devon Island
The northern lights from her deck
A sauna facing the sea
The Swan Restaurant
Vega moments
Her season runs from the midnight sun of Svalbard to the first dark nights of September, when the aurora returns over the Davis Strait. The ship was drawn for both: wide glass for the light, and a deck at the top for the dark.
Lights out on deck
From late August the nights over Greenland and Baffin Bay are dark enough for the aurora. The bridge calls it over the tannoy, the deck lights go down, and guests come up to the stargazing deck on deck 9 in parkas over pyjamas. The ship carries no light pollution of her own worth mentioning.
Lights out on deck
From late August the nights over Greenland and Baffin Bay are dark enough for the aurora. The bridge calls it over the tannoy, the deck lights go down, and guests come up to the stargazing deck on deck 9 in parkas over pyjamas. The ship carries no light pollution of her own worth mentioning.
Life on board
Swan Hellenic began in 1954 as a company that took lecturers to sea, and the habit survived the rebirth of 2020. On Vega the Observation Lounge doubles as the lecture hall, the library sits beside the Basecamp, and the bridge is open to guests. The rest of the day is spent in a quiet Scandinavian house that happens to be moving.
Deck 8: a gym with a view astern, a spa and beauty salon, the sauna and the outdoor jacuzzi. The heated infinity pool is one deck down. None of it is ever crowded.
Elegance and calm
Staterooms and suites
Seventy-six staterooms and suites, all of them outside, sixty with a balcony. Interiors by Tillberg Design of Sweden: pale timber, a flame-effect fireplace, marble in the bathroom. In September the room is where the aurora first shows through the glass, before the call from the bridge.
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Oceanview
19 m², deck 4 Two single beds or a double bed Bedroom with living room area Picture window Flame-effect fireplace Marble bathroom with walk-in shower
Oceanview
19 m², deck 4 Two single beds or a double bed Bedroom with living room area Picture window Flame-effect fireplace Marble bathroom with walk-in shower
SH Vega
Built in Helsinki for the ice
SH Vega was delivered by Helsinki Shipyard in 2022, the second of three sisters and the one that took Swan Hellenic back to the Arctic. She is 113 metres long and 10,600 tonnes, with a Polar Class 5 hull for the young pack ice of Svalbard and Greenland, 4.6 megawatts of hybrid diesel-electric propulsion with a battery bank that lets her sit silently beside a glacier front, and extra-large stabilisers for the crossings of the Denmark and Davis Straits. She carries a dozen Zodiacs and eight kayaks, 152 guests in 76 staterooms, and 120 crew.
Her Arctic takes in the fjords and northern lights of East Greenland, the Viking route between Iceland, Greenland and Baffin Island, and a week in Svalbard shared with her sister Diana. Swan Hellenic positions her where the smaller ship earns its keep.
- 152 guests · 120 crew
- Polar Class 5 · 113 m
- 12 Zodiacs · 8 kayaks
The expedition
How a day ashore is made
On Vega the expedition is the point, and the ship is arranged around it: Basecamp and Zodiac platforms on deck 3, the Swan’s Nest at the bow, the Observation Lounge for the briefing.
Naturalists, a historian, a geologist, a photographer and a doctor, roughly one specialist for every ten guests. They brief each evening in the Observation Lounge and set the next day’s order with the captain at dawn, by the ice and the wind.
Her Arctic season
Voyages with Swan Hellenic
East Greenland and the northern lights, the Viking route to Baffin Island, and a week in Svalbard sail aboard Vega. Her sister Diana takes the ten-night circuit of Svalbard and the long way north from Tromsø. Tell us the month you have in mind and we will tell you which sailing suits it, which stateroom, and what we can do on the fare.
All expeditions
Good to know
SH Vega, in practice
The questions we are asked most before guests choose this ship.
152 guests in 76 staterooms and suites, served by 120 crew. Sixteen Oceanview staterooms sit on deck 4, the balcony staterooms and suites on decks 5 and 6. The whole ship goes ashore in one wave of Zodiacs.
Her hull is Polar Class 5, built for the young pack ice of Svalbard and the Greenland fjords in summer and early autumn. Extra-large stabilisers steady the open crossings of the Denmark and Davis Straits.
From late August, once the nights are dark again, on the Greenland and Canadian Arctic voyages. The aurora depends on solar activity and clear skies, so no sailing can promise it; the bridge calls it when it appears.
All meals, wine and beer with lunch and dinner, the expedition programme, Zodiac outings and landings, a parka to keep, boots to borrow, gratuities and Wi-Fi. Kayaking is booked in advance.
Via Reykjavík for the Greenland and Viking voyages, via Copenhagen or Oslo for Svalbard, with the Swan Hellenic charter onward where it applies. We arrange the flights and the nights either side so the whole journey sits in one booking.
Made to measure
Tell us your Arctic, we build the rest
Every guest sails differently. Tell us what you are hoping for and who you are travelling with, and we shape the voyage aboard SH Vega around it: the sailing, the stateroom, the flights from Australia, the nights either side, and the offers we hold for Arctic Cruise guests. One specialist, from the first conversation until you are home.
The fleet
Other ships we sail
Each ship we work with has her own character and her own Arctic. SH Diana is Vega’s larger sister for Svalbard and the Norwegian coast; Le Commandant Charcot is the icebreaker for the North Pole.
Learn more
