Le Soléal in Tallinn, 13 June 2018

My recent attempts of heading out for ship photography have not been too successful – on days when the weather has been good, I haven't had the time to out for photography, and on days when I would have had the time, the weather has been rubbish. Thus, this week we will go back a bit, to last June, and look at what is one of my favourite ships in terms of the exterior design: Ponant's Le Soléal.

Le Soléal

IMO 9641675
Built 2013, Fincantieri Ancona, Italy
Tonnage 10 992 GT
Length 142,00 m
Width 18,00 m
Draft 4,70 m
Ice class 1C
264 passengers
264 passenger berths
Diesels, combined 6 400 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Service speed 16 knots

There's not much to say about the history of Le Soléal. It is the third ship of Ponant's four-strong Le Boreal -class, the previous installments in the series being Le Boréal and L'Austral, with Le Lyrial following after Le Soléal.

The photos below show Le Soléal in the Vanasadam (Old Harbour) in Tallinn on the afternoon of 13 June 2018, photographed from onboard the inbound Finlandia. As always, click on the images to see them in larger size.

I'm not a huge fan of pictures of ships at the quay, but this time the views were rather impressive.

In case you were wondering, that's Brilliance of the Seas in the background.

I'm still not a huge fan of the lighter grey hull instroduced on the Le Soléal, the darker hue in the first two sisters looked better to my eye.

But having said that, this livery is still miles better than what most cruise lines have these days.

The preferved scrane makes for a nice detail in addition to the ship.

Kships, as always, will return.