Saga has completed the sale of 1981-built ‘Saga Sapphire’ to Turkish tour operator, Anex Tour. ‘Saga Sapphire’ joined Saga’s fleet in April, 2012. In 2021, she will re-enter service as ‘Blue Sapphire’ operating for Anex Tour’s new cruise line, the company said. Nigel Blanks, Saga [Read more...]
Viking Line is to operate the ropax ‘Gabriella’ on cruises from Helsinki to the Åland Islands (Mariehamn) three days a week beginning 1st July. The line has daily services to Åland using six vessels. The range of routes available is now being expanded by offering [Read more...]
Hurtigruten has secured a €105 mill loan facility. This loan will increase the group’s liquidity to around €200 mill. Financed by international investors, it can be used for general corporate and working capital requirements across the group. The loan has a maturity of three years [Read more...]
The Norwegian Government has announced that expedition cruise operators will be allowed to revisit Svalbard under strict new regulations. For example, cruise ships will only be able to carry half of their maximum capacity, need additional medical staff on board and also require guest health [Read more...]
French ferry operator Brittany Ferries and French investor Somanor have cancelled the newbuilding contract with Flensburger (FSG) for the LNG powered ropax ‘Honfleur’. She has been under construction since 2017 in Flensburg, Germany and was originally scheduled to enter service in June, 2019, however, the [Read more...]
Spanish ferry operator, Balearia, has claimed it completed the first LNG bunkering operation for its converted ferry ‘Bahama Mama’ in Algeciras. Balearia carried out the LNG bunkering operations using a truck-to-ship method on 8th June, the company said. Last year, Gibraltar’s Gibdock retrofitted the ropax [Read more...]
Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and Shin Nihonkai Ferry are to use a grant from The Nippon Foundation to develop ‘underlying technologies’ for unmanned ship navigation. These technologies will be tested on a vessel operating in Japanese coastal waters. Mitsubishi said that prototype system will be installed on [Read more...]
Watson Farley & Williams (WfW) has advised its long-standing client, Royal Caribbean Cruises on Liberian law matters regarding the concurrent private offerings of notes worth a total principal amount of $2.15 bill. The notes consist of $1 bill of 9.125% senior guaranteed notes, due 2023 [Read more...]
Deltamarin has signed a contract with China Merchants Jinling shipyard (Weihai) (CMJL), previously known as AVIC Weihai, for the approval and detail design for Finnlines ‘Superstar’ ropax vessel project. This contract is significant, as it further strengthens Deltamarin’s workload for the coming 18 months, the [Read more...]
Lindblad Expeditions has reached an agreement with its export credit agency (ECA) lenders to amend its loan facilities. The ECA members are Garantiinstituttet for eksportkreditt and Eksportkreditt Norge, which represent the Norwegian government, and Citibank, London Branch. This amendment is related to the new expedition cruise [Read more...]