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 …
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 …