Silja Europa in the Stockholm Archipelago, 26 February 2012

Apologies for the lack of updates in the past few weeks. I have been rather busy with various actually important projects (most notably my master's thesis, which is finally nearing completion) and the decidedly non-important time waster of Mass Effect 3 (yes, it is a computer game). Anyway, better late than never, here are some more photographs from my Helsinki-Stockholm-Helsinki cruise with the delightful Bruce Peter. You can read my full account of the said cruise at Maritime Matters here.

Silja Europa

IMO 8919805
Built 1993, Meyer Werft, Germany
Tonnage 59 912 GT
Length 201,78 m
Width 32,60 m
Draught 6,80 m
Ice class 1 A Super
3 123 passengers
3 696 berths
350 cars
932 lane metres
4 MAN diesels, combined 31 800 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 22 knots

A short account on the history of the Silja Europa can be viewed in this entry. The photographs here show the Silja Europa outbound from Stockholm in the Stockholm Archipelago, photographed from the deck of the passing Silja Symphony. Click on the images to see them in larger size.

East of Lidingö, the shipping lane splits in the archipelago with different "lanes" for inbound and outbound ships. Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of timetables we passed the Silja Europa just before the split, hence making these photographs possible.

Not sailing too fast in the narrow and twisting archipelago shipping lane. Värmdö is the island behind the Silja Europa (unless I'm hugely mistaking, and I might easily be).

Passing the fleetmate in the fairly steep curve.

Sailing towards the sun...

The colours in this photo turned out a bit funny, as I tried to maintain the fantastic cloud details but make the ship stand out and lighter (it appeared quite dark in the original).

Sailing past the rising sun, with "fingers of god" evident in the background.