Highspeed 4 & Speedrunner III in Piraeus, 10 November 2013

To make up for the pause in updates, here's a two-ship combo.

Highspeed 4

IMO 9141871
Built 2000, Austal Fremantle, Australia
Tonnage 4 156 GT
Length 92,60 m
Width 24,00 m
Draught 3,90 m
1 050 passengers
188 cars or 150 cars and 4 buses
4 Caterpillar diesels, combined 28 800 kW
4 KaMeWa waterjets
Speed 42 knots

Speedrunner III

IMO 9141871
Name history: SuperSeaCat Three, Speedrunner III
Built 1999, Fincantieri Riva Trigoso, Italy
Tonnage 4 697 GT
Length 100,00 m
Width 17,10 m
Draught 2,70 m
800 passengers
175 cars, 2 buses
4 Rouston diesels, combined 27 500 kW
4 KaMeWa waterjets
2 bow thrusters
Speed 38 knots

The history of the Speedrunner III has previously been covered in this entry on the SuperSeaCat Three.

The Highspeed 4 differs from the Speedrunner III by the virtue of being a catamaran rather than a fast monohull. An AutoExpress 92-type ship from Austal, she was delivered in July 2000 to Minoan Flying Dolphins as the company's third newbuilding. The previous two newbuilt ships, Highspeed 2 and Highpeed 3, were also built by Austal, but they were of the smaller AutoExpress 72 type. One she reached Europe, the Highspeed 4 was placed on the Piraeus-Paros-Naxos service, where she remains to this day.

However, even though the ship's name and route remain unchanged to this day, her owners and livery have changed several times. Already in August 2001, Minoan Flying Dolphins changed their name to Hellas Flying Dolphins. The ship reciece the hull markings of the new owners, but by 2003 at latest the company decided to apply an advertisement livery for their ships. Thus the formerly white-hulled Highspeed 4 now got a red hull, with large Vodaphone logos, and the owner's name redelegated to small type.

In 2005, Hellas Flying Dolphins, Hellas Ferries and Saronikos Ferries merged to form Hellenic Seaways. Thus the Highspeed 4's owners changed again, but her livery was kept largely unchanged. In 2013 the advertiser changed from Vodaphone to Cosmote, and thus the Highspeed 4's hull colour changed from Vodaphone's red to Cosmote's aggressive lime green.

The photographs below show the Highspeed 4 and Speedrunner III in the port of the Piraeus on 10 November 2013, photographed from onboard HAL's Rotterdam. Click on the images to see them in larger size.

Speedrunner III on the left, with Highspeed 4 on the right. Behind the Highspeed 4 you can just see the Highspeed 6, while on the right edge of the image are the Flyingcat 4 and the bow of the Blue Star Naxos.

Athens skyline and the Speedrunner III.

Next time: Olympic Champion & Lato