FRS announced that the company has acquired MIRANDA from Godby Shipping. The 1,624 lane meter vessel will operate on the Motril – Tangier Med route as MIRAMAR EXPRESS as from mid January.
The ship already changed flags, from Finnish to Cypriot.

Another warehouse for Russian forestry products was inaugurated in Kiel’s Ostuferhafen on Tuesday January 9.
Hamburg-based trading company Jacob Jürgensen Wood GmbH has signed a long-term rental contract with the port.
The location of the new warehouse – directly next to the berth for Russia ferries in the Ostuferhafen – is also ideal when weather-sensitive forestry products need to be brought under cover quickly and stored in dry conditions. The timber business at Jacob Jürgensen has shown very strong growth in the last few years and a large part of that growth has been generated by Russian timber products.

FSG has agreed to build a cruise ferry for ICG at a contract price of €165.2 million. It’s going to be the largest-ever built ferry in Flensburg.
Some details:

• Gross tonnage 67,300.
• Passengers: 1,800 and 152 cabins.
• Lane metres: 5,610 = 330 freight units per sailing.
• Uniquely, the vessel has been designed for three tier freight bow loading to allow for efficient loading/unloading and quick turnaround times.
• Compared to the ULYSSES, a 50% increase in peak freight capacity.
• Delivery 2020.
• Conventional fuel with scrubber technology.
• Ice class (!)
• Route Dublin – Holyhead.

She is expected to replace the schedule of the ULYSSES, which in turn will replace the currently chartered vessel EPSILON in the fleet. This will allow for the deployment of the W.B. YEATS (arriving Mid 2018, also under construction in Flensburg and to be launched January 19) full-time on the direct Ireland -France route alongside the OSCAR WILDE.

Vard has secured a ferry order from Boreal. The new car- and passenger ferry features a fully electrical battery solution for continuous electric operations, and is specially designed for environmentally friendly operations in the Norwegian fjords.
The 74m ferry, designed by Multi Maritime, will have a total capacity of up to 60 cars and 199 persons.
The hull of the vessel will be built by Vard Braila in Romania. Delivery of the ferry is scheduled from Vard Brevik in Norway in Q3, 2019.
The ferry will commence operations in Norway from January 2020, crossing Kvanndal-Utne at the west coast of Norway, where Boreal has been awarded a nine-year contract with the Norwegian government.

P&O Ferries, which operates the shortest and most frequent crossings between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, carried 210,533 lorries and trailers on its ships during the last year. The figure represents a 1.3% increase on 2016 and is the best result since 2011.
P&O Ferries operates seven sailings a day between Larne and Cairnryan in Scotland. The service – which is operated by ro-paxes EUROPEAN HIGHLANDER and – CAUSEWAY provides a bridge for goods being transported between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and Britain, and also on to the continent via P&O Ferries’ connecting services from Dover, Tilbury, Hull and Teesport.
In 2017 P&O Ferries saw strong volumes of agricultural and dairy produce, building materials, consumer goods, machinery, peat and household coal being transported on its two Irish Sea crossings, Larne-Cairnryan and Liverpool-Dublin.

The vessel will be designed in Australia and construction of the vessel will commence at Austal Philippines during 2018, with delivery scheduled for July 2019.

SNC Aremiti has awarded a AU$30 million contract to Austal to design and build a new 49m high-speed passenger catamaran ferry.
This order caps off a successful year for Austal’s ferry business, which added eight new vessels to the order book in 2017. That includes two 117m trimarans and a 109m catamaran. Austal also recently signed an MOU with JR Kyushu of Japan for an 80m trimaran.
This SNC Aremiti design features seating capacity for 620 passengers and garage space for up to 30 motorbikes, small vehicles and cargo.
The vessel will be designed in Australia and construction of the vessel will commence at Austal Philippines during 2018, with delivery scheduled for July 2019.

The vessel will be designed in Australia and construction of the vessel will commence at Austal Philippines during 2018, with delivery scheduled for July 2019.

DFDS will acquire all the shares in logistics company Alphatrans Group BV.
Alphatrans is a Netherlands-based company specialised in the transport of long, wide, high and heavy loads. With 197 employees and a fleet of 720 trailers and 125 trucks, it is one of the largest flatbed trailer operators serving mainland Europe, the UK and Ireland. The company has offices in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the UK and Ireland and furthermore in Hungary, Romania and Portugal where DFDS is not represented.

Last year the number of passengers on the Finnish shipping company Eckerö Line grew by 3%. That is a total of 1,496,397 passengers.
More than 37,000 (+ 13%) of the passenger growth came from Estonians and about 55,000 (+ 31%) of international passengers, mainly Russians and Asians.
In turn, the number of Finnish passengers has decreased, especially towards the end of the year. An explanation is the change in the alcohol taxation.
The largest growth was for the freight division, with an 18% increase.

The total number of passengers who travelled with Viking Line in 2017 was
6,881,149, equal to +6%. That figure is the highest in Viking Line’s history.
The number of cargo units was 127,668 (131,918).
The number of passenger cars was 762,253 (682,194).

The greatest increase in passenger volumes was on the Helsinki–Tallinn route, where capacity was enhanced from April to October (fast ferry VIKING FSTR). The volume on that route was 2,341,440 (+15.7%).

In December 2017 AS Tallink Grupp transported 815,255 passengers (+6.2%). The number of cargo units increased by 10.0% to 28,315 units and the number of passenger vehicles increased by 0.6% to 87,672 units in the same comparison.

In Q4 Tallink Grupp transported 2,316,144 passengers (+4%), 97 345 freight units (14.1%) and 253,896 passenger vehicles (-0.8%).