Soon after Gotlandsbolaget lost the ferry service to Gotland, it bought the car and passenger ferry Travemünde Link. She was chartered out for many years, but became the first ferry – together with m/s Visby built in Landskrona – to be used in the Gotland traffic after the company’s return to the Government contracted traffic.
Built for traffic between Germany and Denmark
In the early 1960s, Norwegian tanker owner Ragnar Moltzau started a ferry service between Gedser on the Danish island of Falster and Travemünde outside Lübeck. The company was called Moltzau Line and several newbuildings were put into service during the 1960s and 70s. In 1973, Moltzau sold his shares in the company to Rederi Ab Nordö, which had built up a solid cash position, not least after Gotlandsbolaget took over their Gotland traffic in 1967. Nordö’s involvement was short-lived, however, and after a few years the shares were sold on to Norwegians, with Moltzau’s name disappearing from the company name for good. The company was now called Gedser-Travemünde Ruten A/S.
Close to Christmas 1979 the company placed an order for a newbuilding with OY Wärtsilä AB in Helsinki, and on 30 January 1981 the newbuilding was launched. On 15 June of the same year, the ferry was delivered, and a few days later it was christened Travemünde in Copenhagen by Gustaf VI Adolf’s granddaughter, Princess Benedikte of Denmark.
She served well between Denmark and Germany, but at the beginning of 1987 the shipping company fell into a deep financial crisis and a few months later bankruptcy was a fact. The liquidator looked for new owners for the business, and at the end of April the ferry and the route were taken over by the Swedish shipping company Sea-Link in Nacka. On 28 April, the ferry was renamed Travemünde Link and the Sea-Link brand was added to her chimney. The company was now marketed as GT Link.
Sold to Gotlandsbolaget
1 January 1988 was the first day in the history of Gotlandsbolag that it was without its own traffic. Internationalisation of the business was therefore high on the agenda, and new business opportunities were continually sought. The purchase of the Travemünde Link ferry was an investment that would probably not have been considered just a year earlier. At the same time, the purchase was a relatively risk-free investment for Gotlandsbolaget, which already had secured employment for the ferry.
The Åland-based Rederi AB Sally – one of the partners in Viking Line – started passenger services across the English Channel in the early 1980s with the former inland ferry Viking 5. After Rederi AB Sally ran into financial difficulties, the whole company was sold in 1987 to Effoa and Johnson Line – the owners of Viking Line’s main competitor Silja Line. The UK operations were organised in the subsidiary Sally Line UK, and the charter for a hired Danish ferry was due to expire at the end of 1988/89, so Effoa/Johnson Line was looking for a replacement.
When GT-Link/Sea-Link put the ferry Travemünde Link up for sale, Gotlandsbolaget stayed ahead of the game and bought her in November 1988. After a minor refit in Tilbury, a repaint and a change of name to Sally Star, she entered service for Sally Line between Ramsgate and Dunkirk on 7 December. The charter contract between Gotlandsbolaget and Sally Line ran for a full five years.
After only two weeks in service, Sally Star suffered a serious mishap. With 373 passengers on board, an engine room fire broke out shortly after departure from Ramsgate. Passengers were evacuated to the upper decks, 25 shore-based firefighters were flown out by helicopter and several ships were on stand-by until the fire was extinguished and a tugboat was able to tow the Sally Star into Ramsgate. Fortunately, no one was injured in the fire, but the day after the incident, Sally Star had to be towed across the Channel for repairs at the Dunkirk shipyard. Just over a month later – on 27 January – the Sally Star was back in service.
Another engine room fire
Shortly before half past nine in the morning of 25 August 1994, a fire broke out in the engine room, about a mile outside Ramsgate. The Sally Star was travelling from Dunkirk to Ramsgate at the time with cargo and 104 crew and 17 lorry drivers on board. Of these, 102 were evacuated as a precautionary measure by lifeboats from shore, as well as by British and Belgian helicopters. Firefighters were flown in by helicopter from Suffolk and by 09:30 the fire was reported to be out. Due to the intense heat generated, the hull had to be cooled from the outside to avoid further fire spread. The Sally Star was taken under tow to the Arno shipyard in Dunkirk and after repairs she could be put back into service on 14 October.
The investigation revealed that the fire had been caused by a burst oil pipe:
The fire was caused by the failure of a bolted flange joint on the low pressure fuel system of No 4 main engine, allowing flammable fuel oil vapour to come into contact with part of the engine exhaust system. Initial attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, mainly due to failure of the auxiliary generators and the emergency fire pump and despite the injection of halon gas into the space. However, closure of the engine-room ventilation and fuel oil systems effectively starved the fire of fuel and oxygen. The fire was finally reported as extinguished about three hours from the onset of the emergency.
A debate also followed on the UK’s helicopter readiness. The month before the Sally Star fire, one of the defence helicopter bases had been shut down for cost reasons, and instead of a response time of a few minutes, it had taken 72 minutes for the first Royal Air Force helicopter to arrive at Sally Star. Suffolk firefighters would have had to wait 20 minutes before being picked up by the RAF.
To the Gulf of Bothnia
The Gotland company’s chartering of the Sally Star had been extended in stages, but in 1997 the cross-Channel service was to be phased out. Effoa and Johnson Line – now merged into the new company EffJohn – therefore had the Sally Star reassigned to their subsidiary Silja Line, which for some time had also operated a cross-Kvarken service.
On 12 May 1997, the ship was put into service for Silja Line between Vaasa and Umeå with the artist name Wasa Express painted on the sides. At the same time, the vessel was transferred from the Bahamas flag to the Finnish Register of Shipping, and she was registered to a consortium consisting of Gotland Steamship Co (Bahamas) Ltd, Rederi Hoburgen AB and Finland Levantlinjen AB.
Problematic start in the Gotland traffic
Gotlandsbolaget was to take over the concession traffic between Gotland and the mainland again from 1 January 1998 – after an absence of ten years. Gotlandsbolaget, together with Silja Line, had submitted the tender which was finally accepted by the State, and the shipping companies owned 60% and 40% respectively of the newly formed Destination Gotland, which was to charter the Sally Star and Visby and a newly built high-speed vessel from Gotlandsbolaget.
On 15 September 1997, after the expiry of the charter to Silja Line, the Sally Star departed for Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven for refit. After a relatively extensive refit – including the installation of aft sponges and catalytic converters – the ship entered Visby harbour for the first time at 18:00 on 17 December. On 1 January 1998, the vessel was put into service for Destination Gotland, mainly between Visby and Oskarshamn, with the new name Thjelvar. The ship had now been given a Swedish flag.
However, the start-up was not entirely painless. As early as 30 January 1998, Thjelvar was banned from the port of Visby after an inspection by the Swedish Maritime Administration revealed that previously reported shortcomings in the safety equipment had not been rectified in time. The incident was also widely reported in the national media, including the SvD newspaper:
The vessel was immediately grounded for four reasons: fire separation valves were missing, the engine room was oily and dirty, debris under the hoses could prevent bilge drainage and the captain could not see if one pilot door was open or closed because the indicator light was broken. Deficiencies that endanger passenger safety, the inspectors said. They concluded that a shipping company that cannot rectify such defects within a month also has a questionable safety record.
The haulage company ASG was upset, and the site manager in Visby spoke to SvD:
The whole business is affected. We have cars loaded here on Gotland, in Småland and down in Skåne. We are losing money, as are the haulage companies we work with, and customers are losing money when they cannot get their goods. We will demand compensation and damages from the shipping company. We haven’t worked out how much yet, but we will be tough. This is very different from the weather cancelling some departures.
On 3 February, the ship was certified as a cargo ship and departed for Oskarshamn with permission to carry a maximum of 12 passengers, and on 5 February, the Swedish Maritime Administration had inspected Destination Gotland’s entire safety organisation, so Thjelvar was re-certified as a passenger ship.
After the initial problems, Thjevar proved to work well in traffic during the almost six years she spent on Gotland. Occasionally, however, bad weather causes problems for Gotland’s traffic. 30 December 2001 was one such occasion. Thjelvar overtook a car on the way from Visby to Oskarshamn. One person was slightly injured, three cars suffered sheet metal damage and parts of the interior of the ferry’s shop came off the wall. Thjelvar arrived in Oskarshamn at 15:00 after leaving Visby at 09:00. The shipping company’s investigation later revealed that it was a couple of strong waves coming in from the stern that caused the bow of Thjelvar to be pushed down hard. The overhaul had reached up to 30 degrees at the time. The Swedish Maritime Administration reviewed the company’s internal investigation and found that the company had handled the matter well. “With the stern that Thjelvar has, it is understandable that it happened like this, and the ferry also has no stabilisers like Visby has” added a maritime inspector.
Replaced by a newbuilding from China
By January 2003, the first China ferry, m/s Visby, had been delivered, replacing the Landskrona-built Visby, which was delivered to the new owners Polferries during the summer. Later in the year, the second China ferry, m/s Gotland, was expected to be delivered and Thjelvar was therefore put up for sale for EUR 18 million. Transmanche Ferries had shown an early interest in Thjelvar to replace its leased ferry, but it was now considered that the price was far too high. However, the Gotland company had ice in its stomach, and on 21 November 2003 an agreement was signed for a three-year bareboat charter of the vessel to Norwegian Color Line.
The newbuilding Gotland, which had arrived in Visby harbour for the first time on 7 November, took over Thjelvar’s Gotlandstrafiken services from 1 December 2003. Two weeks later, Thjelvar was delivered to Color Line, berthed in Visby harbour. After the Christmas and New Year holidays, she went down to Fredericia Værft for bow refit, installation of stabilisers and more. The stabilisers came from the Color Line ferry Skagen as no company could be found to supply new ones within an acceptable time. During the shipyard stay, the ship was renamed Color Traveller and given a Norwegian flag. On 10 March, the ship was put into service between Hirtshals and Larvik and the cargo capacity was tripled by replacing m/s Skagen with m/s Color Traveller.
More charter assignments
After being returned to Gotlandsbolaget after the three-year charter, the ferry arrived in Visby harbour again in the middle days of 2006 and was laid up. She was renamed Thjelvar and reflagged to Sweden, and it was not until the autumn that Gotlandsbolaget got her working again. Again a three-year charter contract was signed, this time with Scandlines, which renamed Thjelvar Rostock and put her to work as a freighter between Gedser and Rostock. However, she only stayed there for a year, after which Scandline laid her up in Germany. Although they no longer needed her, they were still bound by a three-year contract. In the last year of the charter, however, Scandline managed to sub-let her to the Moroccan shipping company Comarit for services between Nader and Almeria.
In August 2010, m/s Rostock arrived at the shipyard in Landskrona where she was returned to Gotlandsbolaget. Again the ferry was renamed Thjelvar and was given a Swedish flag, but she was laid up in Norrköping as Gotlandsbolaget had not found any new employment for her. In the summer of 2011, during lay-up in Norrköping, the vessel was inspected by a Bulgarian company whose inspectors reported back home:
The main particulars, cargo capacity, and possibilities to transport drivers and passengers all make the ship very suitable for the SILKLINK Black sea line. If she is purchased, she can start operating in Black sea immediately after the required paper formalities are finalized. Based on the information acquired during the inspection the prospects are that for the next class repairs not much steel work, docking and mechanical work will be required. In conclusion, the opinion of the inspectors is that this vessel is suitable for the needs of Black Sea Ro-Pax Line between Burgas, Poti and Novorossiysk and recommend starting negotiations for the purchase of ROPAX “THJELVAR”.
However, there was no deal with the Bulgarians and Thjelvar did not end up in Black Sea traffic. On 13 August, however, the ship left the Norrköping depot after being chartered out on a bareboat basis for six months to Fred. Olsen. With the new name Betancuria, the ship was put into service between Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Morro Jable on Fuerteventura and Arrecife on Lanzarote. Fred. Olsen also had an option to purchase the vessel, but this was never exercised and in February 2012 the charter was extended for a further six months before Betancuria was returned to Gotlandsbolaget in October 2017.
Sold to Wasaline
In 1997, Sally Star, with the stage name Wasa Express, had started operating for Silja Line between Vaasa and Umeå. With the abolition of duty-free in 2000, SIlja Line discontinued its service across Kvarken. Just a few months later, however, the Finnish businessman Rabbe Grönblom founded the RG Line shipping company and put the old Finnish ferry Fennia into service – now renamed Casino Express. At the end of 2011, the company went bankrupt, but it was able to continue operating in 2012 under bankruptcy protection.
Umeå Municipality and the City of Vaasa began to explore ways to ensure continued traffic across the Kvarken, and a jointly owned company, NLC Ferry, was soon established. On 17 October 2012, NLC Ferry bought Betancuria from Gotlandsbolaget, with the intention of putting her into service across the Kvarken from the beginning of the year. The purchase price was a modest €4.75 million, but this was on top of the €1 million that the municipality of Umeå and the city of Vaasa needed to spend to get the ferry ready for service. For Gotlandsbolaget, it was probably just a matter of getting the old and depreciated ferry sold instead of keeping it in storage down in the Canary Islands with an uncertain future.
The chairman of NLC Ferry was very pleased with the purchase, saying “It’s a lot of boat for the money”. At the turn of the year, the vessel was put back into Kvarkentrafik, now properly renamed Wasa Express. She was initially registered for only 600 passengers, she was given a Finnish flag and the company was marketed as Wasaline. Traffic has developed positively over the years, and in the 2019 traffic year Wasa Express carried more than 200,000 passengers, 46,000 passenger cars and 15,000 freight units.
To the Mediterranean
Already from the start, it was clear that the Wasa Express was a temporary solution, and that a new ferry would be acquired within a few years. After some back and forth, an order was placed in 2019 with the shipyard in Rauma for a new vessel for Kvarken. In September 2020, the new vessel, named Aurora Botnia, was launched and Wasa Express was already on sale. On 16 December 2020, the owner of Wasa Express signed an agreement with the Egyptian company UME Shipping to sell the vessel as soon as Wasaline had taken delivery of the Aurora Botnia.
After several delays, the Aurora Botnia was delivered on 25 August 2021 and on 31 August 2021 the Wasa Express could therefore be handed over in Vaasa to UME Shipping. Wasaline’s captain Jarkko Rinne hoisted Wasaline’s flag at the time of the handover and the incoming captain Mohamed Yousri hoisted UME Shipping’s flag.
Wasa Express barely made it down to Alexandria for the planned start of the Red Sea service before plans changed. In October 2021, Wasa Express was instead chartered out to Spanish shipping company Balearia for service between Almeria in Spain and Nador in Morocco. The first trip for Balearia already took place on 9 November.
Timeline
| 1981-06-15 | Delivered as Travemünde to Gedser-Travemünde Ruten A/S, Gedser. |
| 1987-03 | Sold to ASX 10969 A/S, Gedser after bankruptcy of Gedser-Travemünde Ruten. |
| 1987-04-26 | Company name changed to GT-Link A/S after sale to Nordö-Link. Renamed Travemünde Link. |
| 1988-11 | Sold to Rederi AB Gotland, Visby. Charter to Sally Line UK and renamed Sally Star. |
| 1997-05-12 | Charter to Silja Line with the marketing name Wasa Express. Returned to owner 14 of September. |
| 1998-01-01 | First crossing for Destination Gotland with the new name Thjelvar. |
| 2003-12-15 | Delivered to Color Line for a three year long bareboat charter. Renamed Color Traveller. |
| 2007-10-04 | Departed Öresundsvarvet as Rostock after delivery to Scandlines for a three year long charter. |
| 2010-09-11 | Returned to Rederi AB Gotland and renamed Thjelvar. |
| 2011-08-13 | Departed Norrköping after charter to Fred. Olsen SA, Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Renamed Betancuria. Retruned to owner 17 October 2012. |
| 2012-10 | Delivered to Wasaline (NLC Ferry). Renamed Wasa Express. |
| 2021-08-31 | Delivered to the new owner UME Shipping LLC, Dubai. Charter to Balearia from November. |
Specification
| Length | 137,40 m |
| Beam | 22,60 m |
| Gross tonnage | 9.120 |
| Deadweight | 2.840 |
| Machinery | 4 x 12-cy Wärtsilä Vasa 32A 12V, 14850 kW, 19,4 knots |
| Pax | 1.754 |
| Capacity | 440 cars |
| Call Sign/IMO | SJKA/8000226 |
