Meeting Report

Contact

Maggie Nate

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maggienate@gmail.com

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https://www.sname.org/canadianatlanticsection/home

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 22, 2019


Mr. Christopher Wright Presents to SNAME Canadian Atlantic Section

 

Halifax, Nova Scotia – The Canadian Atlantic Section (CAS) of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME) was pleased to welcome Mr. Christopher Wright to present on June 19th.  The evening started with a social event at the Red Stag followed by Mr. Wright’s presentation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and concluded with Q&A before adjourning.  Mr. Wright is the retired President of The Mariport Group Ltd, a specialized marine and port consulting company formed in 1989.  In 2016 he published Arctic Cargo; A History of Marine Transportation in Canada's North. The book draws on cross Canada research assembling data from many different sources as wall as drawing heavily on Mariport file material. The book addressed a neglected aspect of Arctic development, and was intended as a much needed reference work about shipping and the Canadian Arctic.

 

Mr. Wright’s presentation titled “The Coming Boom in Polar Cruise Activity” drew on research by the author for a new book that will be published in 2020 by The History Press in the UK. Of Penguins and Polar Bears: A History of Polar Cruising traces the origin of Polar cruising from William Bradford's Greenland cruise in 1869 on the Newfoundland sealer Panther, to the proposed delivery of Ponant's PC2 class Le Commandant Charcot in 2021. The presentation included many original photographs relating to the growth of Polar cruising as well as different polar destinations, from St Sunniva in 1886 to date as well as the impact of the Polar Code and touch on the safety record of ships from the Ile de France incident in 1906 in Spitzbergen to Viking Sky in 2019 off Molde.


Approved by: Greg Wiggins; SNAME CAS Vice-Chair Maritimes