Lindblad Expeditions is expanding its relationship with Sea Cloud, where the expedition operator charters sailing ships.

“We have had a long relationship with the Sea Cloud company, and the original Sea Cloud has been just a fantastic charter for us for many years,” said Dolf Berle, CEO, speaking on the company’s year-end and fourth quarter call with Wall Street analysts. “It’s on the strength of that experience that we wanted to expand the relationship to yet another ship, the Sea Cloud II, which will have that same general geographic orientation, which is the greater Mediterranean and then down into the Caribbean is where these ships are designed to go and these are sailing ships.

“They’re a different experience onboard, more of a historic kind of formats and sale — sailing experienced for real sailing enthusiasts,” Berle continued. “So we consider this to be not only just a beautiful way for guests to be in these geographies that we spend a little bit less time and frankly with our existing fleet, but also add guests who come in through the sort of the vantage point of sailing, but then can learn more about the broader expedition products that we offer throughout the world. And so, we consider this strategically helpful, but certainly also financially and audience building.”