The Baltic Princesses that will never be

I've recently been too busy to do a proper blog update, but in order for this place not to slip into obscurity again, I dug into the archives for something slightly different from usual, which manges to be topical at the same time.

As some might know, the return of the Baltic Princess from her refit in Gdansk has been seriously delayed; she was due to be back by 22. February but the current estimated return to service is on 8. March. Rumour has it that they are having trouble lining up the new gearboxes with the existing engines and propeller axles. As always with rumours, take this with a suitable pinch of salt (though it is hard to think what else the reason would be).

Anyway, before the Baltic Princess went to the shipyard, there were persistent rumours (or perhaps persistent hopes) that she would receive a blue-and-white livery more in keeping with the Silja Line brand image during the docking. She won't.

Over the years I've made a few different variations of what she could look like if painted in a more Silja-style livery, and this is as good of a time as any to look at them.

Photo and "whiting out" by Jani Nousiainen, new livery by Kalle Id.

A very stripped-back version, reminescent of the original livery of the Silja Opera, dating from 2015. Here my reasoning, if I recall, was that the blue stripes should only be along the public room deck windows - in retrospect an odd thought, as that hasn't been the case in other Silja ships either.

Same creidts as above. Incidentally, the photo actually features the Baltic Queen, not Baltic Princess.

Inspired the liveries of Brittany Ferries' Économie sub-brand and La Méridionale, I took the previous version to a novel direction with the wavy line blue area painted on the hull. I actually quite like this one, but it's not very Silja. Then again, these have been some quite novel variations of the Silja livery in the past, such as the original paintjobs of the Silja Festival and Silja Karneval.

Again, the same credits as above apply.

Fast forward to autumn 2017, when I returned to the subject and created this most traditionally Silja-esque, and arguably most attractive version. There is the thin blue tripe on top of the hull, borrowed from the Silja Festival and Silja Karneval's original livery, different heights of the superstructure stripes as on the Silja Opera's second livery, and a blue stripe along the bridge windows (don't know why I omitted that in the previous ones, as that has been a common feature in just about every ship since 1981). The superstructure stripes are also boken up by white diagonals as on the Silja Serenade and Silja Symphony. Also notice the liddle added details adjacent to windbreakers of aft top decks, and the blue "spoiler" on the funnel.


Kships will return to normal programming next week.

Further variations on the Viking FSTR

My vision for the Viking FSTR from yesterday (well, technically today, as it was posted after midnight) spawned some feedback... which got my creative juices flowing, thinking about how my first design could be improved, and different ways in which it could be made work. This time around, I've also done some changes to the dark stripes around the windows; they were not too pretty in the original form, so I thought Viking could maybe invest in a small amount of black paint and make the ship look a tad better.

For Version 2, I altered the red paint at the bow for a 'faster' look, changed the ship's name slightly, and as said fiddled with the dark window stripes a bit.

One of the big criticisms of the original design was that there's too much red at the bow... so for Version 3, instead of the red colour rising up at the bow, it slopes down in the same angle as the top of the bow. In addition to that, the only change to V2 is moving the ship's name to a slightly different location at the bow.

Unless I get another bout of inspiration to work further on this, the next entry will really be about the promised images of the Isle of Lewis. Honestly.

Viking FSTR - what it should look like

So, as many readers will probably know by now, Viking Line announced yesterday that they will be chartering a second ship for the Helsinki-Tallinn line between April and October this year. The ship they have chosen is the Express, the catamaran fast ferry that was most recently used by the short-lived Gotlandsbåten on their service linking the island of Gotland to the Swedish mainland. Viking Line are calling her Viking FSTR in their marketing (pronounced 'Viking Faster'), but it remains to be seen whether the ship will really be renamed or if Viking FSTR is just a marketing name.

In addition to the other details, Viking Line have released an artist's impression of what the ship will look like, and I must admit I'm not too keen on the livery they are proposing. Since I had some time - and felt like doing some relaxing fiddling with an image-editing software. I had never photographed the ship in question, but the fellow Swedish ship photographer Kim Viktor (who runs a very neat blog at Sjöfartsbloggarna) had, and he was kind enough to lend me his photo of the Express to work on. So, without further ado, here is my take on how they should paint the new Viking FSTR:

Proper Viking Line red, the shape of the livery matches the shape of the ship... I admit it's not particularly imaginative, but it look a lot more Viking Line than Viking's own impression.

In comparison, here's Kim's original shot:

While I'm at it, I must say I'm not a huge fan of Gotlandsbåten's livery either.

And here is what Viking Line have publicised for the new ship:

Obviously, this image is copyright Viking Line

Kships will return... probably with some real photos of the Caledonian MacBrayne ferry Isle of Lewis.

Kships exclusive: Tallink reveals the new livery of the Baltic Queen!

The Estonian ferry operator Tallink Grupp today revealed that they will renew the liveries of the Baltic Queen (sailing under the Tallink brand on the Helsinki-Tallinn route) and the Baltic Princess (sailing under the Silja Line brand on the Turku-Stockholm route) when the ships are next docked. "The Galaxy has been since the beginning in a livery designed by the Estonian artist Navitrolla. We have decided to honour Swedish and Finnish artists in the new liveries of the Galaxy's sisters, thus our three main markets will be present on the sides of our largest and newest ships", says Tallink's managing director Janek Nalmeister.

The first ship to be repainted is the Baltic Queen, which will receive artwork designed by the Finnish war veteran and internationally renowned artist Touko Laaksonen in its docking next autumn. The Baltic Princess will receive artworks by the Swedish painter Hilma af Klint at a later date.

An artit's impression the Baltic Queen's new livery, by Touko Laaksonen, better known under the stage name Tom of Finland. Photo copyright AS Tallink Grupp/Jani Nousiainen/Kalle Id.

Musings on Finnlines' livery

I've recently been reading a lot of books related to the history of Finnlines and Finland Steamship Company/Effoa for my under-construction Master's Thesis. Amongst these books is Matti Pietikäinen's absolutely brilliant recent From High Arctic to Antarctica: Ships of the Thom Companies in the Seven Seas. In addition to ships owned by the Thom companies (Thombrokers, Thomesto and Thominvest - all are the same company who changed their name along the way) Pietikäinen writes about a variety of related things, amongst them the process by which the current Finnlines decided their livery in 1990, when the company was demerged from Effoa (who had owned Finnlines since 1982, when the previous owners Enso-Gutzeit sold it).

As those of you who have read this blog regularly will probably know, the current livery of Finnlines is like in the image below. White superstructure, blue hull, white funnel. Quite stylish, but a bit generic.

Finnmaid at Kustaanmiekka strait on 9 July 2008. Full set here.

What bothers me about the livery is not that it's somewhat generic or that I would think it unattractive, but it lacks a connection to the history of Finnlines. Technically, today's Finnlines is a descendant of not only Finnlines itself, founded in 1947, but also of Finland Steamship Company's cargo-carrying operations - and Finland Steamship Co. was founded way back in 1883. With all that history to choose from, Finnlines could maybe have come up with something more respectful of their past when choosing their new livery in the mid-00s.

In fact, until this most recent livery change, Finnlines did have a livery respecting the past on most of it's ships. When Finnlines demerged from Effoa in 1990, the company's ro-ro fleet were given green hulls. When Finland Steamship Company built it's first ro-ro freighter Juno in the early 1970s she was given a green hull - in part due to the fact that it was the cheapest paint available, but also to differentiate ro-ro ships from the rest of the fleet. Traditionally (since the 19th century) the company's passenger ships were given white hulls and cargo-carriers black. Ro-ro freighters were seen a distinct group from these two and a new colour was needed. During the first 15 years of it's existance, the "new" Finnlines used that colour on the hulls of most of their ships.

A quick manipulation of the Finnmaid in "Effoa green", though the shade is a bit too dark. I also changed the funnel stripe from blue to green to give the ship a more coherent appearance.

Had Finnlines stuck with "Effoa green" they could have saved a fortune in repainting their fleet and had a more unique and recognisable livery.

Variation 2 in Effoa livery, with the original Finland Steamship Company/Effoa funnel colours. The original livery didn't have the thin stripe above the main hull colour, but a variation adopted by Finnlines in 1994 did. I like it, I'm keeping it.

But Effoa green is not the only option available to Finnlines that would respect their past. The original Finnlines, like Finland Steamship Company, painted the hulls of their traditional freighters black, but they too had a separate livery for their ro-ro ships (in this case also including their passenger-carrying roros - with the notable exception of the Finnjet of 1977). From 1966 until the early 1980s Finnlines ro-ro ships were given grey hulls with a narrow blue line between the hull colour and the general white.

The original Finnlines ro-ro livery transferred to the present, complete with ships names written in cursive typeface.

If a blue hull colour is insisted on, and I admit it's a very nautical choice of shade, then perhaps it would have been more fitting to choose, instead of the current fairly mid-range shade of blue, a dark blue shade honouring Finnlines' one-time flagship (and still probably the best-known individual ship in Finland, several years after she was scrapped) the Finnjet. The Finnjet was originally given a unique livery of a dark blue hull and different funnel colours from the rest of the Finnlines fleet. Much later, in the late 1980s when the Finnjet had already lost her distictive livery and become a part of the Silja Line fleet, two ships belonging to the Finnlines fleet but owned by other companies, namely the Finnsailor of Neste and Finnforest of Thomesto were given hulls in the same shade of blue (although with standard Finnlines funnel colours).

Finnmaid meets Finnjet. The shade of blue might not be exact, as the Finnjet's shade was so dark it looked black in certain light and that's very difficult to replicate on a computer. Again, I've maintained the "extra stripe" on the hull as it looks good and it's the only even semi-traditional element in the current Finnlines livery.

Maybe this is just rambling by a history student/ex-graphic design student who's read one book too many. But don't tell me the other options wouldn't look good, even if I did quickly bash them together.