United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) has designed a series of expedition cruise ships as the Russian state-owned company aims to enter the cruise-ship business in the near future, according to Dmitry Kolodyazny, vice president.

USC has taken notice of the expedition boom, the number of ships in the Arctic, and wants its piece of the pie.

Tatiana Ganzhina, a spokesperson, told Cruise Industry News that USC was working to find Russian tour operators to charter the new ships to.

Eventually, she said they could build the vessels for what she called foreign customers, but the first ship must go to a Russian company, she said.

A USC presentation shows a scalable expedition ship concept, including 9,000-, 13,000- and 17,000-ton versions, and a few different design options. 

The 17,000-ton variant has capacity for 300 guests and a service speed of 16 knots, with a range of 10,000 nautical miles, as well as a ice-class hull enabling the ship to operate in the Arctic without assistance from icebreakers. 

Learn more about the expedition segment of the industry in the Expedition Market Report.