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More than 150 passengers and crew took to lifeboats after the cruise ship M/S Explorer, formerly the Lindblad Explorer, hit an ice floe in the Antarctic and started sinking shortly before midnight on Nov. 22nd, according to the Argentine coast guard.

The evacuation took place during the night in calm seas just off King George Island, and Capt. Arnvid Hansen of the Norwegian cruise ship Nordnorge later said all had been safely taken aboard his ship.

"All are aboard my vessel," Hansen told the BBC.

A spokesperson for Canadian-based Gap Adventures, which owns the Explorer, told CNN "the ship was traveling out of Ushuaia in Argentina, traveling southbound to Antarctica, and off King George Island it hit some ice and began taking on some water."

The Argentine coast guard said that when it reached the ship, it had a 23-degree list but was steady. But the list increased throughout the day, and the ship, built in 1969 as an adventure ship and designed to withstand ice, sank about 20 hours later.

The company said passengers aboard the Explorer, who pay up to $8,000 for a two-week cruise around the Antarctic, included Americans, British, Canadians, Australians, Dutch, Japanese, Argentines and other nationalities.

King George Island lies about 700 miles south of Cape Horn, the tip of South America, and is the largest of the South Shetland islands.