Aidavita in Helsinki, 18 October 2017

The summer cruise season for Helsinki ended last Thursday, and thanks to my lovely wife, I actually managed go out and photograph the the relevant ship. Due to the presenced of a tiny new human in my life, and the work on Innovation and Specialisation: The Story of Shipbuilding in Finland, this was only the third time this year I was out to photograph visiting cruise ships this year. Next year will hopefully be better. Oh yes, and speaking of the book, it should be out from the printers next week. I will write about it in more detail once I have my own physical copies at hand. In the meantime, let's look at this year's last cruise ship.

AIDAvita

IMO 9221554
Built 2002, Aker MTW Wismar, Germany
Tonnage 42 289 GT
Length 202,85 m
Width 28,10 m
Draught 6,30 m
1 266 passengers (lower berths)
1 687 passenger berths
4 Wärtsilä diesels, combined 27 550 kW
2 controllable pitch propellers
2 bow thrusters
2 stern thrusters
Speed 19,4 knots

Delivered in 2002, the Aidavita was Aida Cruises second newbuilding ever. Although externally quite similar to the company's first ship, the Turku-built Aidacara (originally named just Aida), the Aidavita and her sister Aidaaura were built by the Aker MTW shipyard in Wismar in former East Germany - rather fitting, as Aida Cruises themselves started out as an offshoot of the former East German state-owned shipping company Deutsche Seereederei. However, by the time the Aidavita was delivered, Aida Cruises'  ownership had passed under P&O Princess Cruises, which of course subsequently merged with the Carnival Corporation to become Carnival Corporation & PLC. The Aidavita's career appears to have been rather uneventful, so let's proceed right to the photos.

The images below show the Aidavita departing from Helsinki's Länsisatama (West Harbour) in the afternoon of 18 October 2017, photographed from Vattuniemi. The lighting conditions were far from ideal, so I ended up editing these quite a bit; I quite like the end result myself but it is hardly "natural", and I can understand if it isn't everyone's cup of tea. As always, click on the images to see them in larger size.

I think the Aidavita and her sister are particularly successful externally, with a nicely balanced profile already evident in the first Aida ship, but with the covered bridge wings giving an extra touch.

The later Aida newbuilds have, alas, not been as successful (visually) if you ask me.

Yes, I did "cut out" the ship and edit it separately from the background. How ever did you guess?

`The reason why I've been out photographing so little this year on the left - and a more natural lighting of the ship on the right.

I really dig the aft design on this ship; a wedge similar to that of the Sally Albatross, but done better.