Isabelle in Stockholm, 30 October 2018

Last week, we made a two-night ferry cruise to Stockholm with my wife and son onboard the Silja Symphony (thanks to its sushi bar, this ship is now our family's favourite of the two Silja Helsinki-Stockholm ships). While ship photography wasn't the point of the trip, and for most of it the weather was too atrocious for any good ones anyway, I ended up in the right place at the right time by accident and got my first photos of the Isabelle in her newish white-hulled livery.

Isabelle

IMO 8700723
Name history: Isabella, Isabelle
Built 1989, Brodogradiliste Split, Yugoslavia
Tonnage 35 154 GT
Length 169,40 m
Width 27,60 m
Draft 6,40 m
2 480 passengers
2 166 berths
364 cars
900 lane metres
4 Wärtsilä-Pielstick diesels, combined 23 760 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 21,5 knots

Since it's been a few years since the Isabelle was featured here, I guess it's also time to take an updated look at the ship's history.

The Isabelle started life as the Isabella, the second of two ships ordered in the mid-80s by SF Line from the Brodogradiliste Split shipyard in the (then-)Yugoslavia. The older sister Amorella was completed for the Turku-Stockholm service in 1988. On delivery in 1989, the Isabella was planned to be placed on the Naantali-Kapellskär -route. However, the port authorities of Kapellskär were less than thrilled about the thought of expanding their harbour to accommodate the Isabella (and her envisioned running mate, Rederi AB Slite's Athena, today the Pearl Seaways). In the end Naantali did expand their harbour to accommodate the new ships, while Kapellskär did not. To make the best of the situation, SF Line decided to place the Isabella on a new service linking Naantali to Stockholm when the ship was delivered in June 1989.

Initially, the plan was for the Isabella to stay on the Naantali-Stockholm service around the year, but this proved unprofitable and instead the ship was moved to a service of 25-hour cruises to nowhere (actually Tallinn roads) from Helsinki for the 1989-1990 winter season. For the summers of 1990 and 1991 Isabella returned to Naantali, but the Naantali-Stockholm service was deemed a failure and from autumn 1991 the ship sailed exclusively on the 25-hour (later changed to 24-hour) cruise service from Helsinki. In spring 1992, the Isabella was rebuilt with the addition of an observation lounge on deck 11, converting the garage on deck 5 into cabins and on the exterior the addition of a red stripe running along the windows of deck 6. During the summers of 1993 and 1994 the ship also made occasional cruises from Helsinki to Visby.

In the aftermath of the bankruptcy of Rederi AB Slite (the other partner of Viking Line) in 1993, the Isabella swapped routes with the Cinderella after the 1994 summer season, moving to the Helsinki-Stockholm service. During the 1996 summer season the Isabella's (and her running mate Mariella's) route was briefly extanded to Tallinn-Helsinki-Stockholm. This was not a success at the time and the excercise was not repeated (although it was revived in 2014 and has been a regular feature since). When the Gabriella was acquired in 1997, it took over the Isabella's place on the Helsinki-Stockholm service. Isabella in turn moved to the Turku-Stockholm service (replacing the Rosella), pairing for the first time in its career with the sister ship Amorella.

Following the delivery of the new Viking Grace, the Isabella was laid up and placed for sale. Although Corsica Ferries were rumoured to be interested, no buyer emerged and Viking Line produced plans to reactivate the ship for the Helsinki-Tallinn line for the summer season, sailing as a running mate to the Viking XPRS. At this point Viking's main competitors Tallink did a little math and came to the conclusion that they would lose less money by buying the Isabella than they would if Viking could bring an extra ship in for the summer season. In April 2013 the ship was sold to Tallink; a few days before the sale was finalized, its name was amended to Isabelle and Tallink retained the name, as well as the red-hulled livery, only replacing Viking Line logos with their own (see my first entry on the Isabelle).

In May 2013 the Isabelle entered service on Tallink's Stockholm-Riga route, replacing the Silja Festival as the Romantika's running mate. Between August 2014 and December 2016, the Isabelle sailed as the sole ship on the route, due to route changes resulting from the Silja Europa being chartered to Australia (and the period after its return when Tallink pondered on what to do with their fleet). In February 2017, the Isabelle was docked at the Turku Ship Repair Yard in Naantali, Finland, where the ship was repainted in a similar style to its running mate Romantika, all-white with black stripes along the passenger deck windows.

The photos below show the Isabelle at the new Värtaterminalen in Stockholm on the afternoon of 30 October 2018. Photographed from onboard the Silja Symphony. As always, click on the images to see them in larger size.

For once, I'm rather pleased with a shot of a ship at quay and taken from the side of the quay (although I rather think one could also get great shots from the Lidingö side).

These shots also turned out surprisingly sharp considering the fact I didn't have a tripod with me – as you can see from the "warp speed" trucks, the exposure time wasn't exactly short.

Kships will return.