Book news: Ferries 2018

I received this book last week, and was going to do a blog update about it then, but a certain vomitting one-year-old put a small projectile vomit spanner in the works.

But gory details about life at the Id household aside, I've been in a book yet again. This time it's the 2018 edition of the yearly Ferries of British Isles and Northern Europe, published by Ferry Publications. As the name suggests, the "beef" of Ferries 2018 is a database of all Northern European car/passenger ferries in international service, plus all ferries sailing in intra-British or Irish services, and roro cargo ferries sailing to/from Great Britain and Ireland. In addition to the database (which is highly useful in itself), this year's version includes three articles: "Silja Line – 60 Years of Service" by yours truly, "Tallinn-Helsinki: Fit for the Future" by Matthew Punter, and "To Iceland in Wind and Storm" by Kai Ortel.

My "Silja Line – 60 Years of Service" is, as the name suggests, a short look into the history of the company since the formation of Siljarederiet in 1957. If you already own Silja Line from De Samseglande to Tallink, then there's probably nothing new in the article for you (apart from the few lines at the end about the re-separation of Silja Line and Tallink brands that is currently taking place). But if you don't own the book (and you should), this is a nice introduction to the history of the company.

"Tallinn-Helsinki: Fit for the Future" explains and explores the recent grances to Tallink's Helsinki-Tallinn fleet – not just the Megastar introduced earlier this year, but also the changes done to the Star, and the radical refit of the Silja Europa (which was of course also covered on this blog, both during and after the refit).

Finally, "To Iceland in Wind and Storm" is a rather perceptively written account of a Viking Cruise to Iceland and the Faroe Islands onboard Smyril Line's delightful Norröna – well worth a read!

The best way to buy the book is, of course, through Ferry Publications' website here. You can hopefully also find the book in well-stocked bookstores... but unfortunately we no longer have those in Finland, so if you live here and want a copy, off to Ferry Publications' site you go.