Rederi AB Slite – run by Carl Bertil Myrsten and his family – became one of the pioneers in the cruise ferry industry between Finland and Sweden in the late 1950s. When the sister ships Athena and Kalypso were commissioned thirty years later for the joint company Viking Line it was a huge investment for …
Experiments with small high speed ferries on the Gotland service had been carried out already in the 1960s and 70s. However, it was not until 1988 that the first fast ferry entered regular service., namely Gotlandslinjen’s Vindile. By 1998, Gotlandsbolaget had returned to the Gotland service, and then introduced the first steel-built high speed craft. …
The Gotlandia II was built on the experience gained by Gotlandsbolaget from the slightly smaller Gotlandia, nicknamed ‘The French’. The Gotlandia II was deployed on the Gotland service for the 2006 summer season. Following the delivery of the large LNG ferries, the Gotlandia II became redundant and after a short time on the summer route …
Gotlandsbolaget had ordered new generations of ferries in the early 1960s and 70s. In an attempt to save the Swedish shipyards, the government offered extensive shipyard subsidies in the late 1970s to encourage shipping companies to place orders in Sweden. This meant that Gotlandsbolaget was able to bring forward the order for a new generation …
In January 2003, Gotlandsbolaget‘s first high-speed ro-pax ferry was delivered from the shipyard in Guangzhou, China. The ferry took over the traditional name Visby and, together with her sister Gotland, became something of a revolution in the traffic between Gotland and the Swedish mainland. The return of Gotlandsbolaget On 27 November 1996, the Swedish Parliament …
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. …
The chartered Italian ro-ro vessel Eliana Marino experienced technical problems on several occasions during her service for Hansa Destinations in the spring and summer of 2022. On 21 September 2022, she was therefore replaced in a quick manoeuvre by the Malta-flagged ro-ro vessel Cadena 3 in the service between Nynäshamn and Rostock. Cadena 3 had …