Kristina Katarina in Helsinki, 20 June 2012

Kristina Katarina

IMO 7625811
Name history: Konstantin Simonov, Francesca, The Iris, Kristina Katarina
Built 1982, Stocznia Szczecinska im A. Warskiego Szczecin, Poland
Tonnage 12 688 GT
Length 138,00 m
Width 21,01 m
Draugth 5,60 m
450 passengers
4 Sulzer diesels, combined 12 779 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 18 knot

 For a history of the Kristina Katarina, see this entry. The photographs below show the Kristina Katarina passing through the Kustaanmiekka strait on the evening of 20 June 2012, after departing Helsinki on a four-night midsummer cruise. Click on the images to see in larger size.

The tree was more photogenic earlier in the day in different lighting. But it's not bad. Plus, it's a birch tree and it's (almost) midsummer in the pic so...

Bulky Polish steel.

Interestingly, this is the fourth entry about the Kristina Katarina, but the first where I had photographed her from the "traditional" spot in Kustaanmiekka. Worth the wait, no?

Gustavsvärd!

Photogenic sailboat passing in the evening sun.

It looked so good, I had to do a panoramic one too. This one has the added advantage of the little lighthouse-thingy in the background.

Kristina Katarina in Helsinki, 29 May 2012

Kristina Katarina

IMO 7625811
Previous names: Konstantin Simonov, Francesca, The Iris
Built 1982, Stocznia Szczecinska im A. Warskiego Szczecin, Poland
Tonnage 12 688 GT
Length 138,00 m
Width 21,01 m
Draugth 5,60 m
450 passengers
4 Sulzer diesels, combined 12 779 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 18 knot

For a brief history of the Kristina Katarina, see the first entry on her. On 29 May 2012 the Kristina Katarina arrived back home in Finland from her extensive winter cruise season, that took her as far as the Caribbean (becoming the first Finnish-flagged cruise ship to sail there). Unusually she arrived at 16.00, which gave the change to - for once - photograph a ship arriving in Helsinki South Harbour without the need to wake up ridiculously early. She was due to depart at 20.00 and it was my intention to also photograph her outbound passage through Kustaanmiekka - but alas, she departed an hour late by which time I had made the (wrong) decision to start heading home. I did manage to photograph her departure, but only got a handful of not that good images from the deck of the Tor.

Click on the images to see them in larger size.

As you can see, the lighting was not ideal for photographing the arrival - and the all-white cloud cover didn't help much.

That little lighthouse-thing is extremely pictoresque. Should try to take more images featuring it, really.

The white sky and light sea stop being a problem when you can frame the ship's superstructure in front of some trees.

Inbound.

A lot of the ship is obscured, yet I find this photo looks very good.

Passing a pilot boat - who, as my wife pointed out, looks very much like the red Angry Bird here. ;)

More in our series of "obscured but good".

Departing after nine. Has I stayed in Kustaanmiekka the photos would have undoubtedly been awesome - and I would have been home by 23.00 at earliest.

Nordic Travel Fair Thoughts: Brochures, Impressions and Itineraries

Last Sunday I visited the Nordic Travel Fair in Helsinki (held in the Helsinki Fair Center, which is literally next door to my apartment) and as usual came home with a big pile of brochures, many of them for cruise lines and/or ferry operators. Although I must say this year's haul was not as big as on some prevous occasions, most notably Carnival Corporation & plc's brands were conspicuously absent and the only material for them was from Finnish travel agencies that sell their cruises. (I guess I should apologise here is this entry is ramblish - I fear i'm coming down with a flu which might have an effect on the clarity of my writing).

Viking Line's upcoming ship has a brilliant website, but no marketing material at the travel fair. As a side note, I proposed Laurella as a name for the ship - the most popular suggestion in the naming competition was Daniella, so it seems we might be getting another traditional -Ella name. Image copyright Viking Line.

Now, several days after the fair I've finally waded through all the material. One clear disappointment when it comes to printed material was Viking Line. Their brocure for this spring was just eight pages and most importantly next to no information about their as-of-yet-unnamed LNG-powered Turku-Stockholm ferry due for delivery in almost exactly 12 months. Of course paper brochures are almost completely superfluous in this digital day and age - except if you want to archive them. A website will change and information be lost forever, but a printed brochure will remain. Also, all Viking's competitors had notably more substantial brochures, even Eckerö Line had dozens of pages despite the fact they were in essence advertizing just one ship.

What really stroke me as interesting when reading through my haul was how the way a brochure is written and how it represents a company effects the reader. This is of course not a surprise as such - the brochures are meant as promotional material after all. But what is interesting is that a brochure can have the exact opposite effect from what was intended. I've experienced this before when I first laid my eyes on a Royal Caribbean International brochure. I did not have any particular preconceptions about the company (I liked the fact their major ships were built in Finland, but I'm not fond of the horizontal atrium arrangement), but what the brochure did was make me not want to sail on them.

The Celebrity Constellation seemed far more appealing before I read Celebrity Cruises' brochure. More images of the ship here.

This time the same thing happened to me with a Celebrity Cruises brochure. Now with Celebrity I did have preconceptions - strongly positive ones. From what I have read and heard from other people, they seem like a cruise line defiantely worth checking out, and I was in fact strongly considering taking my next cruise on them. But the brochure painted the company in a completely different light from what my preconceptions were - it was all hyperbole and brashness in place of the sophistication I've come to expect. The overall impression was repugnant rather than appealing.

Kristina Cruises - interesting itineraries for a relatively cheap price. But is the onboard product appealing for someone like me? Based on my impressions from various sources the ansver is "no".

On the other side of things, what majorly surprised me was how appealing the Finnish cruise line Kristina Cruises managed to make their product in their brochures. From all that I have heard the company is aimed for elderly Finns and in all probability it will absolutely not be my kind of a thing. Yet in the brochure they managed to make their onboard product rather appealing. But perhaps the most important thing were the itineraries. When I look at the itineraries of most cruise lines (particularly their european itineraries) I find myself thinking "boring, boring, boring, maybe, boring". With Kristina Cruises it was more like "Ooo, an interesting Black Sea cruise! Ooo, an interesting West Africa cruise! Ooo, an interesting Scottish Isles cruise!" and even "Ooo, an interesting Baltic Sea cruise!".

I guess with Kristina Cruises I'll do the thing I planned on earlier already: take a short (three- or four-night) Baltic Sea cruise during the summer to check out the onboard product. If it's good I'll definately think about trying one of the more interesting cruises outside the Baltic. Celebrity poses an more difficult problem: is my previous conception correct, or was I just hoping for it to be "my kind of cruise line" like I did with MSC Cruises? Since what I'm primarily planning on doing with Celebrity is a two-week Caribbean cruise, I'd hate to find out the company was really exactly like their brochure indicated.

Kristina Katarina in Helsinki, 14 August 2011

Kristina Katarina

IMO 7625811
Previous names: Konstantin Simonov, Francesca, The Iris
Built 1982, Stocznia Szczecinska im A. Warskiego Szczecin, Poland
Tonnage 12 688 GT
Length 138,00 m
Width 21,01 m
Draugth 5,60 m
450 passengers
4 Sulzer diesels, combined 12 779 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 18 knots

For a history of the Kristina Katarina, please see the first entry on her. The photographs below show the ship in Helsinki on the evening of 14 August 2011. She was at Kanavaterminaali's quay overnight in preparation for her second winter season, which will take her as far away as the Caribbean, making her the first Finnish-flagged cruise ship to ever sail there (there have, of course, been Finnish-owned cruise ships in the Caribbean, but never a Finnish-flagged one - though there were plans to take Finnlines' Finnstar there in the early 1980s, but she was withdrawn before any of these plans could be realised). Photographs taken from various locations in the South Harbour. Click on the images to see them in larger size.

Sunset a half past eight: The Kristina Katarina at quay alongside the Suomenlinna II, one of the three serries providing service between Helsinki's Market Square and the island fortress Suomenlinna (aka Sveaborg in Swedish).

An hour later in the same place. On the right in the background in the orthodox christian Uspenski Cathedral. The grey tower in the background on the left is the tower of the Kallio Church.

A different point of view taken from Tähtitorninmäki. The white building next to the Kristina Katarina on the left is the (former) Enso-gutzeit headquarters, also the former HQ of Finnlines.

Later, that same evening.

(Almost) the same point of view as on the first image, but now showing the row of former warehouses along the shore of Katajanokka. The rightmost building is the terminal used by Viking Line.

Kristina Katarina, 29 August 2010

Kristina Katarina

IMO 7625811
Built 1982, Stocznia Szczecinska im A. Warskiego Szczecin, Poland
Tonnage 12 688 GT
Length 138,00 m
Width 21,01 m
Draugth 5,60 m
450 passengers
4 Sulzer diesels, combined 12 779 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 18 knots

Kristina Katarina is Kristina Cruises' new flagship, taking over the mantle of the only genuine Finnish cruise ship in existance from the Kristina Regina, which has been sold to a preservationist group in Turku.

Like the ship she replaced, the Kristina Katarina has an interesting history. She was built as the Konstantin Simonov in 1982 in Poland for the Soviet Union's Baltic Shipping Company as essentially a short-distance liner with a small side-loadable garage for 14 cars. As one of the seven Dmitriy Shostakovich -class ferries built, she was used on a service linking Leningrad to Helsinki and Stockholm. Following the fall of the Soviet Union the Baltic Sea operations of Baltic Shipping Company were reorganized as Baltic Line in 1992. She continued in service between St. Petersburg (as it was now called), but made 24-hour cruises from Helsinki to Kronstadt, Gogland (Suursaari) and Vyosotsk (Uuras).

All this came to an end in May 1996 when Baltic Line went bankrupt. In 1996 the Konstantin Simonov was sold to Venezuelan owners and renamed Francesca for planned cruise service out of Australian ports. This never materialized, and the Francesca was laid up in Wilhelmshaven for four years. In 2000 she was finally sold, to Abcus Shipping, who chartered the ship to Mano Maritime based in Israel With Mano the ship was renamed The Iris and used for cruising out of Israel. In 2001 she was rebuilt with additional public rooms on the top deck forward of the funnel. Presumably around the same time her small car deck was also removed.

In 2009, following the acquisition of larger tonnage by Mano Maritime, The Iris was sold to Kristina Cruises as a replacement for the Kristina Regina. Still retaining her earlier name, The Iris sailed back to the Baltic in winter 2009-2010 to be rebuilt in Kristina Cruises home port Kotka. Following a lengthy rebuilding during which her entire interior was rebuilt, the ship was renamed Kristina Katarina in July 2010. On 28 August 2010 she left on her first cruise as Kristina Katarina from Kotka to Helsinki via Tallinn.

Photographs below are of the Kristina Katarina's maiden arrival in Helsinki on 29 August 2010 (naturally she has visited Helsinki repeatedly as the Konstantin Simonov). Photographs taken from Kaivopuisto. Click on the images to view full size.

A familar silhouette on Kruunuvuorenselkä after 14 years. Updated/re-treated 30. 8. 2010

Turning in Eteläsatama's pool, with Uspenski Cathedral (Alexey Gornostaev 1868) in the background.

Kristina Katarina arrived somewhat ahead of schedule and had some trouble manoeuvring into quay. (Which meant Viking Line's Gabriella had to back out of quay instead of turning in the harbour pool).

Backing into the quay at Kanavaterminaali (instead of Pakkahuoneenlaituri Kristina Regina used or the quay at Makasiiniterminaali that the Konstantin Simonov used).

Kristina Regina, 28 May 2010

Kristina Regina

IMO 5048485
Built 1960, Oskarshamns varv, Sweden
Tonnage 4 295 GT
Length 99,83 m
Width 15,28 m
Draft 5,25 m
245 passengers
2 Wärtsilä-Vaasa diesels, combined 3 240 kW
2 propellers (?)
1 bow thruster
Speed 17 knots

Kristina Regina probably needs no introduction, as I wrote widely on her in yesterday's entry about her. The photographs below are of the Kristina Regina in Helsinki South Harbour on 28 May 2010, taken from Kaivopuisto. Click on image(s) to view full size.

In the South Harbour pool, with Market Square in the background.

Still in the harbour pool, with the Uspenski Cathedral (Alexey Gornostaev 1868) in the background.

On Kruunuvuorenselkä shortly afterwards, with Laajasalo oil harbour in the background.

Kristina Regina, 22 June 2010

Kristina Regina

IMO 5048485
Built 1960, Oskarshamns varv, Sweden
Tonnage 4 295 GT
Length 99,83 m
Width 15,28 m
Draft 5,25 m
245 passengers
2 Wärtsilä-Vaasa diesels, combined 3 240 kW
2 propellers (?)
1 bow thruster
Speed 17 knots

Kristina Regina is another ship with a fascinating history. She was built in 1960 as the steam-powered car/passenger ferry Bore for Steamship Company Bore. She had a small side-loadable car deck, making her in fact the first purpose-built car ferry in the North Baltic (an accolade usually given to Siljavarustamo's Skandia of the following year). She was used on an overnight service from Turku to Stockholm's Skeppsbron. In 1970 Steamship Company Bore and the associated Finland Steamship Company, Rederi AB Svea and their joint subsidiary Siljavarustamo reorganized their operations, forming the joint marketing company Silja Line. Resultingly the Bore joint the Silja Line fleet. Unlike most other Silja ships, she kept SS Co. Bore's yellow hull livery, on which Silja's seal-logo was painted.

In 1976 Silja finally decided to close the steamer service to Skeppsbron, and the Bore was laid up. In 1977 she was sold to the SS Co. Bore-associated Jakob Lines and renamed Borea for service on the Gulf of Bothnia. After a patchy career of Jakob Line services and various charters, in 1984 she was again used for overnight Turku-Stockholm service, now for Aura Line who wished to revive the service as a tourist attraction. Aura Line was not a success, and in late 1984 the Borea was again laid up.

Following a failed attempt to rebuilt the Borea into the luxury cruise ship Vanderbilt, the ship was sold in 1987 to Rannikkolinjat, based in Kotka, Finland. She was renamed Kristina Regina, re-engined with diesels and rebuilt as a cruise ship, entering cruise services on the Baltic in 1988 under the banner of Kristina Cruises. Initially she was only used for Baltic cruises in the summers and laid up for the winter months, but from 1999 onwards the Kristina Regina spent the winters cruising in warmer waters. She is, to date, the most successful Finnish cruise ship.

Due to SOLAS 2010 regulations coming into effect in October 2010, the Kristina Regina must be withdrawn from service in 2010. In preparation for this Kristina Cruises puchased a new ship, Kristina Katarina, already in late 2009. In July 2010 the Kristina Regina was sold to a group of businessmen from Turku, to be delivered after her final cruise on 21 August 2010. The plan is to restore the ship to Steamship Company Bore's livery and use her as a permanently moored hotel/museum/restaurant in her original home port Turku.

Photographs below are of the Kristina Regina in Kustaanmiekka strait on 22 June 2010, photographed from Kustaanmiekka. Click on the image(s) for full size.

Kristina Regina making her way for the strait...

...and displaying her classic lines.

Through the strait (quite enough space for such a small ship) and onwards to open sea.