The sinking Explorer cruise ship run by G.A.P. Adventures in Toronto is owned by Trinidadian Brian Poon Tip. Poon Tip is the Chief Executive Officer of G.A.P. Adventures. The Explorer started taking on water after colliding with an ice floe. All passengers and crew have been evacuated to Chile. This is the first incident the Explorer has had in forty years of business.
The Explorer will forever be remembered as the first ship to sink in the Antarctic Ocean. All 154 passengers and crew were rescued after several hours and are in Chile awaiting flights out of the country. The Explorer was originally designed specifically for plying the ice filled waters of Antarctica. After forty years of successfully doing that, it took up to four hours to evacuate the ship as it lay on its side sinking into the Antarctic forever.
The distress call was picked up by Argentinean and Chilean authorities, which dispatched emergency response teams to the site. The Explorer, which flies a Canadian flag, had 91 passengers from 14 countries, including 13 Americans, 22 Britons, 17 Dutch and ten Canadians, officials said. No Trinis were reported to be on board. In addition to the passengers, there were nine expedition staff members and a crew of 54.
The Explorer is registered to GAP Adventures, a travel firm started by Poon Tip in 1991 after he moved to Canada from Trinidad. The company provides eco-friendly excursions with an environmental focus.
Poon Tip opened the firm to provide adventure tours to tourists to developing countries in Central and South America. Today, GAP Adventures is one of the ten largest adventure companies in the world, with some Cdn. $35 million in revenues annually.
Besides receiving an award as one of Canada’s top 40 Canadians under 40, Poon Tip has also been honoured as one of Canada’s top five entrepreneurs by Canadian Business, won the coveted Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2002, was awarded the National Citation for Entrepreneurship and was named one of Canada’s 100 leaders of tomorrow.
Poon Tip recently received the Global Traders Leadership award from the Canadian government for his groundbreaking ideas in exporting services. He has spearheaded a postgraduate diploma programme for Humber College on Eco Tourism and Adventure Travel, and was invited by the World Bank and UNESCO to represent a team visiting the People’s Republic of China to lecture on Sustainable Development.
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In House with reports from Trinidad Newsday [9]