While the race is on to build a carbon-neutral cruise ship, the actual moment one sets sail has appeared far off on the horizon: Hurtigruten’s Sea Zero is a blueprint for zero-emissions cruising along Norway’s coast by 2030, the same year that Ponant hopes to launch a transatlantic sailing ship with zero greenhouse gas emissions when under way or in port.
Out of nowhere, a new player has burst onto the scene—and is ready to hit the water as soon as 2026.
French polar expedition company Selar is building what it calls a “close-to-zero-emissions” sailing vessel powered by nature. The yet-to-be-named ship is currently under construction at the CNOI (Chantier Naval de l’Ocean Indien) in Mauritius and will rely on sun and wind to navigate Arctic waters. Above the superstructure tower: five solid sails covered in 20,000 square feet of solar panels.
At 230 feet long, the vessel is configured for up to 36 passengers in 19 cabins. Expeditions, such as the week-long “Dive with Orcas in Norway” maiden voyage in November 2026, won’t have set itineraries to encourage what the company calls “spontaneous adventures,” or sailings that flex to the wildlife and weather conditions met on each journey.
Selar co-founder and CEO Sophie Galvagnon tells Robb Report that she expects the vessel to be able to run on sun and wind 90 percent of the time, with the remaining 10 percent fueled by two backup engines operating on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO).
Galvagnon, who at 26 became the youngest woman to command a polar expedition ship, is the driving force behind the project, alongside French entrepreneurs Julia Bijaoui and Quentin Vacher. Passionate about the Arctic, a part of the world where Galvagnon says she feels more at home than her actual home in France, the weight of cruising in the region on polluting ships had started to take a toll. “I realized it was not okay to feel guilty destroying the place I love the most on earth,” she says. “I was convinced that there could be an alternative.”
Rather than building a zero-emissions ship that can reach all corners of the globe, Selar has imagined a vessel fit for one particular region, in this case the Arctic. As such, the sails are not made for Atlantic crossings (“soft sales with a higher surface would be better for that,” Galvagnon says), but have been purpose-built for cruising destinations like Svalbard.
“Because of the climate, we needed to design sails that were robust but also simple in operation, because the weather can change quickly and we need to be able to react quickly,” she says. “We also needed to take the energy from the sun, especially during the six months when it’s out 24 hours a day.”
The sails, designed by an in-house design team, drew heavily from aviation. “The profile of the sails is identical to airplane wings,” she says. “We’ve just rigged them up, put on some solar panels and built them so they can fold down in case of bad weather or if we have to sail under a bridge.”
The interiors are minimalist, with sustainable materials brought to the fore. Among the luxury amenities, including a restaurant, library and green-powered sauna, is a science lab; scientists will be among the guests invited onboard.
The simplicity of what Selar is set to achieve has taken even Galvagnon by surprise. “When we first found the solution, I thought it was so simple that something must be wrong,” she says. Perhaps, she reasons, it’s more a case of everyone else looking too far ahead. “Our focus was on solutions available now—and on a long-term scale,” she says.
Galvagnon, who will captain the inaugural voyage, hopes that this is the first of many zero-emission vessels. “We don’t intend to stay as a single-ship company,” she says. “Our expectation is to grow the fleet while upholding the mission: as close to zero carbon as possible, adventurous and immersive experiences, and local ships that serve only one place.”
