MS Princess Maria

Princess Maria at the Kustaanmiekka strait outside Helsinki.
Career
Name:	1981-1990: Finlandia 1990-2010: Queen of Scandinavia 2010 onwards: Princess Maria
Owner:	1981-1988: Effoa 1988-1990: Suomen Yritysrahoitus 1990 onwards: DFDS Seaways
Operator:	1981-1990: Effoa 1990-2008: DFDS Seaways 2010 onwards: St. Peter Line
Port of registry:	1980-1990: Helsinki, Finland 1990-2010: Copenhagen, Denmark 2010 onwards: Valletta, Malta
Builder:	Wärtsilä, Turku, Finland
Yard number:	1251
Laid down:	18 February 1980
Launched:	25 July 1980
Christened:	30 March 1981 by Tellervo Koivisto
Acquired:	30 March 1981
In service:	13 April 1981
Out of service:	1 September 2008
Identification:	IMO number: 7911533
Status:	In Service
Notes:	Sister ship to MS Stena Saga
General characteristics (as built)
Tonnage:	25905 GRT
Displacement:	3,898 metric tons deadweight (DWT)
Length:	166.10 m (544.95 ft)
Beam:	28.46 m (93.37 ft)
Draught:	6.70 m (21.98 ft)
Ice class:	1 A Super
Propulsion:	4 × Wärtsilä-Pielstick 12PC 2,5V diesels combined 22948 kW
Speed:	22 knots
Capacity:	1676 passengers 1601 passenger berths 450 cars
General characteristics (currently)
Tonnage:	33575 GRT
Displacement:	3898 DWT DWT
Length:	166.10 m (544.95 ft)
Beam:	28.46 m (93.37 ft)
Draught:	6.70 m (21.98 ft)
Ice class:	1 A Super
Propulsion:	4 × Wärtsilä-Pielstick 12PC 2,5V diesels combined 22948 kW
Speed:	22 knots
Capacity:	1760 passengers 1650 passenger berths 305 cars

MS Princess Maria is a cruiseferry operated by St. Peter Line under charter from DFDS Seaways on a service connecting Helsinki, Finland to St. Petersburg, Russia. She was built in 1981 as MS Finlandia for Effoa at Wärtsilä's Perno shipyard in Turku, Finland, and placed in service on Silja Line's Helsinki—Stockholm service. In 1990 she was sold to DFDS Seaways and renamed MS Queen of Scandinavia. She entered service under her current name and operator in 2010.

Service history

1981-1990: MS Finlandia

Originally to be named MS Skandia, Finlandia was the first large, modern cruiseferry to be built for Silja Line. At the time she was also the world's largest cruiseferry in terms of passenger capacity, beds and volume. Alongside her sister MS Silvia Regina (and Viking Line's contemporary MS Viking Saga and MS Viking Song) she was instrumental in changing the Helsinki-Stockholm route from a transportation service into a cruise route.

Finlandia and Silvia Regina were originally constructed with very 'fat', curving bows to maximise car-carrying capacity, but these made the ship extremely difficult to handle especially during the winter. As a result the Finlandia was docked in January 1982 (after just eight months of service) in Wärtsilä's Perno shipyard for reconstruction of her bow to a sleeker form. Following the bow reconstruction additional rebuilding was done at Wärtsilä's Turku shipyard, where additional cabins were built and repairs were carried out on the restaurants.

During her career for Silja Line the Finlandia enjoyed a special relationship with Mauno Koivisto, who was at the time the Prime Minister and later President of Finland. Finlandia was named by Koivisto's wife Tellervo Koivisto in 1981 and the pair travelled on Finlandia twice while Koivisto was President, first in 1984 on Wärtsilä's 150 anniversary cruise and again in 1985 when the pair made an official visit to Sweden.

In 1985 Finlandia's interiors were heavily rebuilt at Wärtsilä's Helsinki shipyard.

In September 1988 Finlandia was sold to Suomen Yritysrahoitus in order to raise funds for new ships for the Helsinki—Stockholm route. Suomen Yritysrahoitus then chartered the ship back to Effoa for 1½ years. In December 1989 Suomen Yritysrahoitus sold Finlandia to DFDS for delivery in May 1990, which was the planned delivery date for Finlandia's replacement MS Silja Serenade. However, due to the bankruptcy of Wärtsilä's shipbuilding division the Silja Serenade was delayed by several months. DFDS took delivery of the Finlandia as agreed in May 1990 and EffJohn (merger of Effoa and Johnson Line born in early 1990) was forced to look for a solution for its ship shortage elsewhere.

Queen of Scandinavia in Newcastle.

1990-2010: MS Queen of Scandinavia

On 6 May 1990 the Finlandia made her last call at Stockholm and left for docking at Cityvarvet, Gothenburg in preparation for her new service. Five days later she received her new name, MS Queen of Scandinavia. In June 1990 she began service on DFDS's Copenhagen—Helsingborg—Oslo route, initially as the pair of MS King of Scandinavia, originally MS Wellamo of Effoa, the ship that Finlandia had replaced on the Helsinki—Stockholm service.

In January-April 2000 Queen of Scandinavia was rebuilt in Gdynia, Poland, with rear sponsons and, again, a new sleeker bow. The new bow is especially notable due to the fact that it has no gate or visor, hence the ship's car decks can now only be loaded/unloaded from the rear.

In June 2001 Queen of Scandinavia was replaced on the Copenhagen—Oslo service by MS Pearl of Scandinavia, and she was moved to the Newcastle—IJmuiden route. In September 2002, while sailing to Ijmuiden, a woman fell overboard from one of the upper decks in the early hours of the morning. A lifeboat was quickly launched from the ship, while Yarmouth coastguard and other ships assisted in the search. After 7 hours of searching Queen of Scandinavia continued to Ijmuiden and left the coastguard to continue the search, without success. The woman had very little chance of survival due to the height of the fall and the low temperature of the water.^{[citation needed]}

In May 2007 the Queen swapped routes with MS Princess of Norway, taking over the Newcastle—Stavanger—Haugesund—Bergen route. This allowed DFDS to operate two sister ships, Princess of Norway and the third MS King of Scandinavia on the Newcastle—IJmuiden run. On 26 November 2007 while in the port of Bergen, the Queen of Scandinavia broke her forward moorings and collided with the expedition ship MS H.U. Sverdrup II. The H.U. Sverdrup II was severely damaged, while the Queen of Scandinavia received only cosmetic damage and was able to depart for Newcastle in accordance with her normal timetable.

DFDS Seaways closed down the loss-making United Kingdom—Norway service with the Queen of Scandinavia making her final sailing on 2008-09-01. Following this Queen of Scandinavia sailed to Korsør where she will stay until she is either sold or chartered out to another company.

In February 2009 Queen of Scandinavia was chartered to Alstom and moved to the harbour of Oskarshamn in Sweden for use as living quarters for some 800 workers involved in the upgrading reactor 3 of the Oskarshamn Nuclear Power Plant. While at Oskarshamn on 16 April 2009 a fire started in the ship's engine room at around 11 PM CEST. According to preliminary reports, all 238 people onboard have been safely evacuated, and the fire was put out by 0:30 AM. Precise reasons for the fire are unknown as of 17 April 2009. The fire damaged the ship's auxiliary engines.

On 12 May 2009 DFDS reported they had agreed to sell Queen of Scandinavia to a new Finland-based company Nordic Sea Line, with a delivery date set for June 2009. Nordic Sea Line planned on using the ship as a floating hotel and conference center around Northern Europe. However, in the end the sale was cancelled as Nordic Sea Line failed to make the initial payment that was due to be paid on 15 May 2009.

After the end of the accommodation ship contract in Oskarshamn Queen of Scandinavia was moved to Klaipeda, Lithuania, for further lay-up. From December 2009, the ship was chartered to the Danish police as an accommodation ship in Copenhagen.

2010 onwards: MS Princess Maria

In early 2010 the Queen of Scandinavia was chartered to St. Peter Line for use on a new route operated by the company, St Petersburg - Helsinki. She was renamed Princess Maria, re-registered to Malta and entered service on 21 April.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

[[Commons: Category:IMO 7911533

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]]

• St. Peter Line official website

Preceded by GTS Finnjet

World's Largest Cruiseferry 1981–1982

Succeeded by MS Scandinavia