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 the family business. A few years later, the Rederi AB Slite saga was over and Athena was sold to the Far East. But she would once again return to the Nordics.
Myrstens twins
At the end of the 1980s, competition in the Finnish-Swedish traffic was fierce between the two rival shipping companies Viking Line and Silja Line. There was great optimism about the growth opportunities for cruise traffic between the neighbouring countries, and in just a few years almost a dozen new cruise ferries were delivered to the service. Viking Line’s Åland partners ordered two newbuildings from a shipyard in Yugoslavia and one from Finnish Wärtsilä, and the Gotland partners – the Myrsten family – placed an order for two ferries from Wärtsilä’s Turku shipyard. Myrsten’s new ferries were initially planned for the Stockholm-Turku service and were therefore built in the usual way with a large roll on-roll off cargo deck and an upper garage aft for passenger cars. When Myrsten’s first newbuilding – named Athena – was delivered on 21 April 1989, it was instead used in the 24 hours cruise service between Stockholm and Mariehamn, replacing the ageing Apollo III. The large cargo deck was therefore not needed on Athena, which is why it was rebuilt on the starboard side as the ‘Röda Lund’ amusement park. The port side was used as a garage for the cruise passengers’ cars.
At the time of delivery, Athena was the world’s largest cruise ferry (by gross tonnage) and was heavily marketed by Viking Line. Prior to the start of service, the vessel was described as follows:
We are now putting a brand new, purpose-built cruise ship into service in Mariehamn, so expect luxury life on the Baltic Sea to set new records! The m/s Athena is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and should raise the eyebrows of even the most seasoned party animals. Join us for a preview of the luxury suites, dance floors and whirlpools before it’s time to board in spring 1989. And then you might understand why the word ‘splendour’ takes on a whole new meaning.
As we all know, the bilge is at the bottom. It contains bunker and trim tanks and 800 tonnes of fresh water for 756 showers on board. Half of deck 1 is occupied by four huge Sulzer engines manufactured by Finnish Wärtsilä, with an output of 4 x 5940 kW, which can make the ship travel at 21 knots if necessary. As the first vessel to operate in Finland, the engines are rubber-mounted, which means that Athena will be the quietest and most vibration-free of all floating vessels. Also on this deck, fresh bread and small sweet pastries are baked every day in the ship’s own bakery, something that we are alone in and like to boast about. The ship’s own laundry is also located here; guests can get quick laundry during the journey.
Deck 2 is dominated by C and D cabins for a total of 294 passengers. The cabins are comparable to hotel rooms and are equipped with all necessary amenities. Almost all cabins have two bunks opposite each other on the floor. Park on board and you will avoid the problems in Stockholm. We have 90 bookable spaces in our car park on decks 3 and 4. Half of deck 3 has been built as an amusement park for adults and the largest playroom for children ever built on a ship. There you can have an unforgettable pentathlon at sea for conference groups, for example. We call it Röda Lund, which says something about the surprises that await both small and large children.
Deck 5 is a combined deck of 1000 m² where companies can have exhibitions and large groups can gather. We can easily bring in objects that are the size of a car. The ceiling height is 2.30 metres and that is really the only limitation. You decide how you want to utilise this deck for your group. The room can be functionally furnished with a podium and seating, refreshments can be served from a cocktail bar. The fun begins on deck 6. At the front, you can soak in the sauna and bathing area overlooking a rolling sea! Or sip on an exotic drink in the grill bar after a while in one of the ship’s five saunas. The area also boasts a spacious children’s pool, two whirlpools, solarium and gym. On this level there are also A and B cabins with room for 136 passengers, of which just over half can enjoy a sea view.
Deck 7 is the first thing you see when you board. The centrepiece of the entrance is the huge water-cast crystal sculpture by Timo Sarpaneva, which stretches from the floor of the 7th deck to the ceiling of the 8th! In the bow is the Brasserie and Grill, where over 400 passengers can feast their gizzards. Heading aft, you’ll pass the Boulevard Café serving pastries, kebabs, burgers and ice cream before arriving at the Baltic’s largest supermarket and perfume shop. The kids can be found either in the playroom wrestling with a sea monster or in the teenage disco Ratata. There are also 50 comfortable armchairs and a specially designed reading room. Deck 8 is a paradise of entertainment and culinary experiences. The Blue Heaven Day and Night Club, with seating for 374 guests, is located in the stern of the ship. Here you can take a stroll, toast in one of the two bars or break the bank in the Casino. The views are marvellous through the gently sloping glass walls that run from floor to ceiling. The Buffet Apple in the centre of the ship seats 362 people and can easily be divided for smaller parties. Next door is the Lizard Pub with 46 seats.
In the front of the ship you’ll find our main restaurant, Smaragd, with a view in the direction of travel through a huge glass pane that extends all the way down to the seventh deck. Smaragd seats 294 people and has its own dance floor. The truly discerning gourmet should head for the small, intimate luxury restaurant Sapphire, which seats 36 guests, and another 20 can kick back in the Piano Bar. High up in the ship, with every opportunity for peace and quiet, lie the majority of the cabins. Deck 9 accommodates A and B cabins from bow to stern. As many as 850 passengers get their night’s rest here in comfortable and well-equipped cabins, all with toilet and separate shower cabin.
At the front of deck 10 you will find 4 luxury suites with separate bedrooms and sea views. Like the suites, the 68 luxury cabins along the sides of the ship are equipped with a TV, trouser press, seating area and hairdryer. In addition, the luxury cabins have bay windows, which provide a completely new view of the surroundings. For the first time, you can sit in the cabin and look ahead along the fairway. On this deck, there are also 112 B and C cabins for a further 154 passengers. Luxury cabins and suites have room service with breakfast service and the possibility to order small dishes and refreshments from a separate menu.
Myrsten’s lifework goes bankrupt
On 7 April 1993, Myrsten’s two companies, Rederi AB Slite and Rederi AB Volo, were declared bankrupt by Nacka District Court. The newspaper DN quickly sent a reporter down to Athena and reported the following day:
He has tears in his eyes as he walks towards the bridge. It is Captain Alf Berglund’s last day on the ship Athena. This is also the last day for the Myrsten family in Rederi AB Slite. Carl Bertil Myrsten’s lifework from 1959 went bankrupt on Wednesday. “I feel as a part of the company. I’ve been with the company for twenty years and have been captain of the Athena for three and a half years,” says Captain Alf Berglund.
His future is now uncertain, as is that of the first cabin attendant, Rakel Eriksson. After thirty years as a housewife in Åland, Rakel Eriksson found work on board one of Slite’s ships in 1986. She is now 57 years old and her job, like that of the other one thousand employees of the shipping company, is under threat. Rakel Eriksson fights back tears as she bravely says: “We will work on as usual. But I feel so sorry for the Myrsten family. They have been good employers. Gentle and nice. But it’s that bank, Nordbanken, and other things that have caused the misery”.
Myrsten’s financial problems had begun in October 1989 when Athena’s sister ship Kalypso was being completed at Wärtsilä. The shipyard unexpectedly went bankrupt, which meant that Myrsten’s newbuilding cost SEK 200 million more than expected. At the time, Myrsten had already ordered another newbuilding, this time from Germany. When Sweden freed up its currency in 1992, the value of the krona fell so sharply that the cost of the German newbuilding – which was to be named Europa – rose by more than SEK 300 million virtually overnight. As a result, the Myrsten family became insolvent when their house bank, Nordbanken, refused to renegotiate parts of the loans. Bankruptcy was soon a fact.
Many people criticised the forced bankruptcy and said that Nordbanken’s board had a vested interest in letting Rederi AB Slite go bankrupt because it had issued large loans to the competing Silja Line, which was running at a large deficit. In addition, both a board member and the CEO of the construction company NCC sat on the bank’s board at the same time as NCC was the largest single owner of EffJohn, which in turn ran Silja Line.
Many years later, financial journalist Hans-Göran Björk published the book ‘Den ena den var vit – om konsten att sänka skepp’ (The one that was white – about the art of sinking ships), in which he argued that the bankruptcy had been completely unnecessary. Gustav Myrsten – son of Car-Bertil – said in connection with the book’s release: “But now it feels very good to have it confirmed by bankruptcy trustees, journalists and others who have gone in depth that it was unfair play”.
Malaysian Genting Group buys Athena
Immediately after the bankruptcy of Rederi AB Slite, Nordbanken demanded that the bankruptcy trustee Rolf Åbjörnsson would take Athena and Kalypso out of service and sell them as soon as possible. However, Åbjörnsson refused and saw it as more financially favourable for the bankruptcy estate that the ferries should remain in Viking Line’s service during the summer period. The employees were thus given a few months’ respite while Åbjörnsson began to sound out the interest of potential buyers. And there was no shortage of speculators. Irish Ferries was considering the vessels for service between the UK and Ireland, Sea Containers for a planned service between Venice and Istanbul and P&O for its service across the English Channel. In addition, SF Line – the only remaining owner of Viking Line – was of course very interested in securing the ships in its traffic. According to the newspaper Dagens Industri, even the US Military Sea Lift Command was interested in Athena. The idea was that she would be a resource for shipping material and soldiers to war zones, and in between go in commercial traffic between Florida and Mexico.
Instead, it was the unknown Star Cruises that bought the two sister ships. Star Cruises was founded in the autumn of 1993 as an associate company of the powerful Malaysian Genting International Group with many hotels and luxury resorts in its portfolio. The aim of the new company was to dominate the fast-growing Asian cruise market from Singapore and Hong Kong, particularly along the west coast of Malaysia to Langkawi in Malaysia and Phuket in Thailand.
The Swedish Seafarers’ Union was not kind in its criticism when the two ferries, with all their Nordic jobs, were to disappear from the Baltic Sea to be sold to what the union said was ’a Singaporean shipping company that is a front for a Chinese gambling syndicate. Chinese gambling interests apparently take precedence over Swedish jobs,‘ said Anders Lindström, chairman of the Swedish Seafarers’ Union, who was highly critical of the receiver. Star Cruise’s purchase price for the two ferries totalled SEK 1.3 billion and Anders Lindström said that Åland-based SF-Line had offered SEK 100 million less, but had been prepared to negotiate further without the bankruptcy trustee being interested in that.
Converted into a casino ship
In September 1993, Athena was renamed Star Aquarius, reflagged to Panama and began her month-long voyage to Singapore. Kalypso continued in Viking Line service for a few more months before departing for Asia shortly after New Year under the name Star Pices.
At the Sembawang shipyard in Singapore, the sister ships were converted into pure cruise ships. Star Aquarius arrived at Sembawang on 22 October 1993, and the extensive conversion work took eight weeks.
Extensive steel work was carried out on the car deck. The car ramps were removed and instead a completely new deck (No 4) was fitted on top of the car deck where new crew cabins were built. The 55 new cabins on decks 3 and 4 accommodated as many as six crew members per cabin. The cabins on decks 5 and 6, which had been used as crew cabins in Viking Line services, could now be converted into passenger cabins. All public areas on board were improved. Among other things, one of the restaurants was converted into smaller private dining rooms with a Chinese flavour. In addition, a new Italian restaurant and a Japanese restaurant were added on deck 10. A new karaoke lounge and eight private karaoke rooms were also built on the same deck. Down on deck 3, the large main casino was built as well as a VIP casino with a ceiling height of 4 metres. New satellite TV and communications equipment was also installed, along with 800 new TV sets, and an outdoor swimming pool with wooden deck and four Jacuzzis – two in the bow and two in the stern – were built. Finally, extensive upgrades were made to the technical systems on board. These included the installation of four new air-conditioning units with two compressors and five kilometres of air-conditioning ducts on board, as well as two fresh water generators with a capacity of 1,000 tonnes of fresh water per day.
The ship had her name extended to Langkapuri Star Aquarius before she was delivered just before Christmas 1993. The ship was named after the Langkapuri Beach Resort on Langkawi Island and now offered three-day cruises from Singapore to Langkawi and Phuket all year round. In 1998, the departure destination was changed to Hong Kong and around the same time the hull was painted white.
Back to the Nordics
As Star Cruises expanded its cruise operations in Asia, it also took delivery of several newbuildings. The converted car ferry Langkapuri Star Aquarius was therefore soon phased out and in early 2001 she was sold to DFDS, which had been one of the interested parties in 1993. The vessel returned to Europe in March 2001 under the temporary name Aquarius, and in the spring and early summer she was again converted into a car ferry. Both Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and the Aalborg shipyard were engaged to restore the car decks and rebuild the interior. In addition, sponsons were fitted aft to fulfil new stability requirements following the sinking of the Estonia in 1994.
In DFDS traffic for more than two decades
On 26 June 2001, she set sail on her first voyage between Copenhagen, Helsingborg and Oslo under the name Pearl of Scandinavia. In the years that followed, more refits were carried out – in Copenhagen and at the Öresund shipyard in Landskrona.
In November 2010, the ship was painted in DFDS’ new colours with a dark blue hull and chimney and renamed Pearl Seaways, but the ship still continued to operate between the Danish and Norwegian capitals. Already in the autumn of 2006, the call at Helsingborg had been cancelled to save fuel and pilotage costs, but from the summer of 2020 Frederikshavn was added to the route instead after Stena Line closed the Frederikshavn – Oslo route.
Gotlandsbolaget buys route and vessels
In June 2024, Gotlandsbolaget issued a highly unexpected press release announcing that it had entered into an agreement to buy DFDS’s historic line between Copenhagen and Oslo. The acquisition of the line included the two cruise ferries Pearl Seaways and Crown Seaways and a business with around 800 employees at sea and on land. The purchase price amounted to approximately DKK 400 million, equivalent to just over SEK 600 million.
Gotlandsbolaget justified the acquisition by saying that in recent years it has focused on streamlining and sales in order to now take a clear step forward in Gotlandsbolaget’s growth and expansion in passenger shipping and the tourism industry. CEO Håkan Johansson commented:
The line offers cruises between Copenhagen and Oslo, and had around 700,000 travellers in 2023. It is a business that works well today, but we see great development potential and will develop the product and the offer further. Intensive work is currently underway ahead of the takeover of the business in the autumn.
DFDS CEO Torben Carlsen also comments on the deal:
The line is part of our history and heritage, and it is with a heavy heart that we have found a new home for it and will say goodbye to many valued colleagues. We have decided that this is the best way forward for everyone. We have grown and developed considerably over the years, and the line deserves an owner with cruise experiences as a central part of their strategy going forward. We have found that in Gotlandsbolaget, which we are pleased about.
On 31 October 2024, the vessels, the line and all staff were transferred to Gotlandsbolaget, which initially continued to operate the service unchanged under the DFDS name. In connection with the takeover, Gotlandsbolaget communicated:
For passengers, most things will be the same initially, as the development will take place step by step. For example, bookings will be made on DFDS’ booking site also in 2025. The line will initially be marketed under the DFDS brand, but a new name and brand are under development.
Timeline
| 1989-04-21 | Delivered as Athena to Rederi AB Slite and Rederi AB Volo, Slite. |
| 1993-09-23 | Sold to Star Cruises (Genting International), Malaysia. Renamed Star Aquarius and slightly later Langkapuri Star Aquarius. |
| 2001-02-26 | Sold to DFDS Seaways A/S, Copenhagen. Renamed Aquarius and in May to Pearl of Scandinavia. |
| 2011-01-19 | Renamed Pearl Seaways. |
| 2024-10-31 | The Oslo-Copenhagen route and the vessels Pearl Seaways and Crown Seaways are taken over by Gotlandsbolaget. The vessels are registered at the subsidiary Alvina Shipping A/S. |
Specifikation
| Length | 178,40 m |
| Beam | 33,80 m |
| Gross tonnage | 40231 GT |
| Deadweight | 3316 dwt |
| Machinery | 4 st Sulzer 9ZAL40s, 23760 kW, 21 knots |
| Pax | 1832 |
| Capacity | 320 cars, 702 cabins |
| Call Sign/IMO | OWFU2/8701674 |