Ponant, the world leader of luxury expeditions, and an expert in navigation in polar regions for over two decades, recently organised the world’s first international rescue exercise in a remote polar zone. During a trial voyage to the North Pole with its polar exploration vessel, Le Commandant Charcot, the company raised the bar again for maritime safety and standards in polar tourism. 

The one-off on-site scenario was live coordinated between Russia, Greenland, Iceland, Canada, the United States and Norway, as well as the PONANT teams aboard and PONANT’s head office in Marseille, France. The exercise took place over a 24-hour period on the ice, during which the 67 participants had to set up a polar survival camp among other tasks. American and Canadian coastguards, as well as Norwegian Arctic rescue experts were also present as observers.

The objectives of the simulated rescue exercise were to optimise the coordination between the region’s international rescue centres and conduct medical research and behavioural studies on participants to understand the impact of spending long periods of time on the ice. Conclusions are being shared with polar environment experts and will help the expedition cruise industry and rescue centres across the world to not only devise new safety strategies, but also improve their knowledge about the impacts of such a crisis situation.

For Ponant, the exercise was also an ideal opportunity to test all the rescue and safety equipment, particularly the Ice Cube, the group survival kit, the floating polar shelters and the survival suits. Developed and designed from scratch by Ponant, they currently exceed the existing safety criteria established by the tourism industry as well as the military. 

With the tools developed by Ponant and the organisation of such a large-scale exercise, the company continues to set new standards of safety at sea, as well as pioneering new ways of exploration.