Viking Line
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Viking Line is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of large combined cruiseferry ships between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.
In Finnish the cruiseferries on the route between Finland and Sweden are called ruotsinlaiva (Sweden's ship) and in Swedish finlandsbåtar (Finland ships).
Viking Line is operated from the Åland Islands.
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[edit] Company History
[edit] Early Years: 1959-1966
Viking Line's history can be traced back to 1959, when a group of sea- and businessmen from the Åland Islands province in Finland formed Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen, purchased a steam-powered car-ferry S/S Dinard from the UK, renamed her S/S Viking and began service on the route Korpo (Finland) - Mariehamn (Åland) - Gräddö (Sweden). In the same year the Gotland-based Rederi AB Slite began a service between Simpnäs (Sweden) and Mariehamn.
In the early 1960s a disagreement caused a group of people to leave Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen and form a new company, Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan, who began a service linking Gräddö and Mariehamn the following year.
Soon the three companies competing passengers between Åland Islands and Sweden realised that in the long run they all stood to lose from mutual competition. In 1965 Vikinglinjen and Slite began collaborating, and in the end of July 1966 Viking Line was established as a marketing company for all three rederies. At this time Rederi Ab Vikinglinjen changed their name to Rederi Ab Solstad, presumably to avoid confusion with the marketing company. The red hull livery was adopted from Slite's Ålandspilen service (to which it had been taken from the colour of the chairman's wife's lipstick!). Rederi Ab Solstad later changed their name to Rederi Ab Sally and Rederi Ab Ålandsfärjan became SF Line.
[edit] 1967-1985
Because Viking Line was only a marketing company, each owner company retained their individual fleets and could choose on which routes to set their ships (naturally there was also co-ordination on schedules and such). Each company's ships are easy to distinguish by name: all Sally ships had a "Viking" prefix on their names, Slite took their names from Roman and Greek mythologies, while SF Line's names ended with -ella in honor of managing director Gunnar Eklund's wife, whose name is Ellen.
During the 1970s Viking expanded greatly and took over Silja Line as the largest shipping consortium on the Northern Baltic Sea. Between 1970 and 1973 Slite and Sally took delivery of five nearly identical ships built at Meyer Werft Germany namely M/S Apollo and M/S Diana for Slite and M/S Viking 1, M/S Viking 3 and M/S Viking 4 for Sally. M/S Viking 5, delivered in 1974, was an enlargened version of the same design. These so-called Papenburg Sisters can be considered to be one of the most successful ships designs of all times (the shipyard built three additional sisters of the original design for Transbordadores for ship services in Mexico: Azteca, Coromuel and Puerto Vallarta). In 1973 Viking Line started service on the Turku - Mariehamn - Stockholm route, directly competing with Silja Line for the first time. The next year Sally began traffic between Helsinki and Stockholm. For the next decade this route stayed in their hands, whereas on other routes the three companies operated together.
By the latter half of the 70's Sally was clearly the dominant partner in the consortium. In 1980 they took delivery of three new ferries (M/S Viking Saga, M/S Viking Sally and M/S Viking Song), largest to have sailed under Viking's colours. This further established their dominance over SF Line and Slite, although the former did take delivery of the new M/S Turella and M/S Rosella in 1979-1980 and the latter M/S Diana II). In the early 1980s Sally started expanding their operations to other waters, which became the company's failing as those operations were largely unprofitable and ultimately made Sally unable to invest on new tonnage for Viking Line service.
[edit] 1985-1993
In 1985 a new leaf was turned in Viking Line's history when SF Line's brand-new M/S Mariella, the largest ferry to be built at that time, replaced M/S Viking Song on Helsinki - Stockholm service, breaking Sally's monopoly on the route. The next year Slite took delivery of Mariella's sister M/S Olympia and thus forced Sally out of Helsinki - Stockholm route completely. While SF Line and Slite were planning additional newbuilds, Sally were in an extremely poor position financially and in 1987 Effoa and Johnson Line, the owners of Silja Line, purchased Sally. As a result SF Line and Slite forced Sally to leave the Viking Line consortium.
Between 1988 and 1990 SF Line took delivery of three new ships (M/S Amorella, M/S Isabella and M/S Cinderella) while Slite took delivery of two (M/S Athena and M/S Kalypso). Unfortunately Wärtsilä Marine, the shipyard building one of SF Line's newbuilds and both of Slite's, went bankrupt in 1989. SF Line avoided financial repercussions, their Cinderella had been continously paid for as her construction progressed. Hence it was SF Line who owned the almost completed ship when the shipyard went bankrupt. Slite however had signed a more traditional type of contract, the Kalypso was to be paid for on delivery. Since the shipyard owned the unfinished ship, this led to an increased cost for the Kalypso - about 200 million SEK more than had been originally envisaged. In the end, despite the financial problems, by 1990 Viking Line had the largest and newest cruiseferry fleet in the world.
In 1990 Slite started planning M/S Europa, which was to be the jewel in the company's crown, the largest and most luxurious cruiseferry in the world. Unfortunately for them Sweden entered a financial crises during the construction of the ship, which led to devaluation of the Swedish krona. This in turn meant that the cost for the Europa increased from 1500 million SEK to over 2000 million SEK. When time came to take delivery of the new ship, Slite did not have the funds to pay for it and their main funders (Swedish Nordbanken, who were also the main funders of Silja Line) refused to loan them the money needed. Eventually the ship ended up in Silja Line's fleet and Slite was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1993.
[edit] 1993-present
The collapse of the other partners left SF Line as the sole company in Viking Line. Unlike their partners they had emerged relatively unscratched from the financial troubles of the early 90's, but the events also left the company pursuing careful tactics and avoiding risks. It's telling that instead of looking to purchase new or even used ships to replace the ones lost in Slite's bankruptcy the company simply made do with what they had for several years. In the Turku - Stockholm service this resulted in notable drop in quality when the ageing M/S Rosella was brought in to take over from the glamourous and highly popular M/S Kalypso that had been sold to Star Cruises. In 1995 SF Line changed their name into Viking Line.
Between 1994 and 1996 the company operated a fast ferry service from Helsinki to Tallinn during the summers on chartered catamaran ships. In 1997 they purchased M/S Silja Scandinavia and renamed her M/S Gabriella for Helsinki - Stockholm service. It has been reported that around the same time plans were made to construct a pair of new ships for the Helsinki - Stockholm service so that Viking could better compete with Silja on that route, but the plans were shelved.
It took until 2005 for Viking to order a new ship, in response to growing competition from Tallink on the Helsinki - Tallinn route. The new ship's project name is Viking XPRS and is to be delivered from Aker Finnyards, Helsinki in January 2008. In January 2007 Viking Line announced that they had placed an order for another new ship, a 15.000 GRT ferry at the Spanish shipyard Astilleros de Sevilla. The project name for the ship, that will replace the ageing M/S Ålandsfärjan on the Mariehamn - Kapellskär route, is Viking ADCC and delivery is excpected for March 2009.
[edit] Future
In addition to building the XPRS and ADCC, Viking Line's CEO Nils-Erik Eklund stated in an interview of the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat that the company were looking to replace the ships operating between Turku and Stockholm. The volume of freight transported on the route has been steadily growing during the past years and if the growth continues the current ships will be too small to meet demand in the future. [1]
[edit] Fleet
[edit] Current Fleet
- M/S Amorella, Turku - Mariehamn/Långnäs - Stockholm
- M/S Gabriella, Helsinki - Mariehamn - Stockholm
- M/S Isabella, Turku - Mariehamn/Långnäs - Stockholm
- M/S Mariella, Helsinki - Mariehamn - Stockholm
- M/S Rosella, Helsinki - Tallinn
- M/S Viking Cinderella, Stockholm - Mariehamn (one-day cruises), also Stockholm - Mariehamn - Riga during summer
- M/S Ålandsfärjan, Kapellskär - Mariehamn
[edit] Ships under construction
- Viking XPRS (NB 1358), a fast ropax ferry for Helsinki - Tallinn service, scheduled for delivery in January 2008 from Aker Finnyards, Helsinki.
- Viking ADCC, a day-cruise ferry for Kapellskär - Mariehamn sevice, scheduled for delivery in March 2009 from Astilleros de Sevilla, Spain.
[edit] Former ships
- S/S Viking (1959-1970) - scrapped 1973
- M/S Slite (1959-1964) / M/S Tella (1989, chartered) - scrapped 2006
- M/S Boge (1961-1963) - sunk 1981
- M/S Panny (1963-1964) - scrapped 1985
- S/S Ålandsfärjan (1963-1972) - scrapped 1972
- M/S Drotten (1964-1966) - scrapped 1979
- M/S Apollo (1964-1967) - scrapped 2006
- M/S Visby (1965, 1967-1970, chartered) - scrapped 2002
- M/S Kapella (1967-1979) - scrapped 2006
- M/S Viking 2 (1968-1978) - scrapped 1979
- M/S Apollo (1970-1976) - currently M/S Apollo for Woodward Group
- M/S Viking 1 (1970-1983) - scrapped 2002
- M/S Marella (1970-1981) - scrapped 2004
- M/S Viking 3 (1972-1976) - currently M/S Roslagen for Eckerö Linjen
- M/S Diana (1972-1979) - currently M/S Jamaa II for Bayway Shipping Co.
- M/S Viking 4 (1973-1980) - scrapped 2005
- M/S Aurella (1973-1982) - currently M/S C.T.M.A. Vacancier for C.T.M.A.
- M/S Viking 5 (1974-1981) - currently M/S Boughaz for Lineas Maritimas Europeas
- M/S Viking 6 (1974-1980) - scrapped 2001
- S/S Apollo III (1976-1981) / M/S Apollo III (1982-1989) - currently M/S Prince for Advent Systems Ltd.
- M/S Turella (1979-1988) - currently M/S Fantaasia for COMANAV
- M/S Diana II (1979-1992) - currently M/S Meloodia for Balearia
- M/S Viking Saga (1980-1986) - burnt in 1990; rebuilt 1992. Currently M/S Opera for Sea Containers
- M/S Viking Sally (1980-1990) - sunk 1994 as M/S Estonia
- M/S Viking Song (1980-1986) - currently M/S Regina Baltica for Tallink
- M/S Olympia (1986-1993) - currently M/S Pride of Bilbao for P&O Ferries
- M/S Athena (1989-1993) - currently M/S Pearl of Scandinavia for DFDS
- M/S Kalypso (1990-1994) - currently M/S Star Pisces for Star Cruises
- M/S Europa (never delivered) - currently M/S Silja Europa for Silja Line
Additionally a lagre number of ferries were chartered during the 1970s and 1980s for seasonal traffic.
[edit] See also
- Silja Line - rival operator
- Tallink - rival operator
- Viking
[edit] External links
- Viking Line - In Finland
- Viking Line - In Sweden
