Silja Serenade in Helsinki, 11 June 2011

Silja Serenade

IMO 8715259
Built 1990, Masa-Yards Turku New Shipyard, Finland
Tonnage 58 376 GT
Length 203,03 m
Width 31,93 m
Draugth 7,12 m
Ice class 1A Super
2 852 passengers
3 001 berths
410 cars
1 600 lane metres
4 Wärtsilä-Vasa diesels, combined 32 580 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 21 knots

I found to my surprise I've posted just two entries with photographs of the Silja Serenade and five of her Swedish-flagged sister Silja Symphony. Since such a state of affairs is clearly intolerable, especially as I'm bound by my nationality to prefer the Serenade (honestly the sisters are indistinguishable from each other and so is the service onboard), here are some new(ish) photographs of the Serenade.

Silja Serenade departing Helsinki on 11 June 2011, photographed passing through the Kustaanmiekka strait. Click on the individual images to see larger size.

Turning towards the strait, with Laajasalo oil harbour in the background. The sailboat in the foreground almost caused an accident when they insisted on sailing through the strait simultaneuosly with the Serenade, ignoring warnings from the ship's foghorn (it's possible the crew simply didn't realise they were warnings, as the three cruise ships sailing through the strait before the Serenade had been quite liberal in blasting their typhon purely for showoff purposes).

Let's be honest, she's a big floating box. But a strangely good-looking one at that.

Straight through the strait.

Passing out of the strait, with the sail of sailboat that got out of the way just in time in the foregroundbehind the ramparts.

Can't resist some additional panoramic fiddling. The two-funnel ships that looks suspiciously like the Finnjet in the distance on the right is in fact the Seabourn Sojourn.

The day after tomorrow (20 July) is Kships' 1st anniversary. I'll try to come with something interesting for the occasion.

Seabourn Sojourn in Helsinki, 11 June 2011

Seabourn Sojourn

IMO 9417098
Built 2010, T. Mariotti, Italy
Tonnage 32 346 GT
Length 198,15 m
Width 25,60 m
Draught 6,40 m
462 passengers
462 berths
4 Wärtsdilä diesels, combined 23 040 kW
2 azipods
2 bow thrusters
Service speed 19 knots
Maximum speed 25,5 knots

Seabourn Sojourn is the second ship in a trio of newbuildings for the Carnival Corporations -owned Yachts of Seabourn. (Personally I would question if a 32 000 GT ship can by any measurement be called a "yacht", even if she is small by today's cruise ship standards - she is for instance about 7 000 GT bigger than Louis Cruises' Louis Cristal). She entered service in 2010. As Seabourn is one of the ultra-luxe cruise lines, all accommodation onboard the Seabourn Sojourn are suites. I admit I don't really have much to say about the ship apart from that. For some reason, her exterior reminds me very much of the former Finnish cruise ship Sally Albatross/Silja Opera (today sailing as the aforementioned Louis Cristal), though to be honest the semblance might just in my head.

The photographs below show the Seabourn Sojourn passing through the Kustaanmiekka strait on 11 June 2011 after departing from Helsinki South Harbour. Click on the individual images to view larger size.

Entering the Kustaanmiekka strait. In the background you can see the slowly-dismantling Laajasalo oil harbour. In a few years there should be a residential area in it's place.

The ship is surprisingly goodlooking, considesing the all-outside accommodation and large number of balconies. Of course, the small size helps... and maybe for a luxury cruise line, exterior appearances are slightly more important than for lines offering more standard products.

Out to the open sea, with plenty of spectators on the "no entry" -area of the ramparts.

I guess what mainly reminds me of the Sally Albatross in the looks of the Seabourn Sojourn is the rear of the ship, combined with the fact that the side of the ship is very similar.

The blob in the background on the right is Le Boréal, which had departed some minutes before. Silver Whisper also departed between Le Boréal and the Seabourn Sojourn, but I'm not putting of the photographs of her as they are so similar to my earlier set of the Silver Whisper.

Le Boréal in Helsinki, 9 & 11 June 2011

Le Boréal

IMO 9502506
Built 2010, Fincantieri Ancona, Italy
Tonnage 10 700 GT
Length 142,00 m
Width 18,00 m
Draught 4,70 m
Ice class 1C
264 passengers
264 berths
Diesels, combined 6 400 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 16 knots

There's really nothing much new to say about Le Boréal  that I wouldn't already have said in the previous entry about her. She's still a magnificient yatch-like cruise ship with superbly attractive stylings both inside and out, with the white-grey-red exterior colour scheme also carried over to the inside in a most tasteful manner. This is one ship I would not mind sailing on... not that I would have the money to do so in the foreseeable future.

Le Boréal called in Helsinki twice within three days in early June this year, first on 9 June. On this day she departed early, at 14.00, and the photo opportunities were less than ideal, but below are two images from that day. Click on the image(s) to view larger size.

At the Katajanokka cruise quay, with the ship and the sun for once positioned so that a nicely lit photo of the ship's rear was possible.

On Kruunuvuorenselkä, bound for the Kustaanmiekka strait.

The same ship again in Helsinki on 11 June 2011. This time she left at the more practical time of half past four, which yielded nice photo opportunities at the Kustaanmiekka strait. Click on the individual images to see larger size.

From the point of view of the history of ship design it's interesting to note that two funnels located on the sides of the ship, which once was the sign of a workmanlike ferry, have now become increasingly common on luxury cruise ships.

You wouldn't nescessarily think a predominantly grey livery makes for a good-looking ship, but it does work amazingly well on the Le Boréal and her sister.

Through the strait. The warm day attracted a lot of people to Suomenlinna and surprisingly many were taking photographs of the ships passing by, as the two people visible here.

18th-century military architecture and 21st-century maritime architecture in the same image.

Proudly flying the French flag... even if the ship is actually registered at Mata-Utu in the French overseas collectivity of Wallis and Futuna in the Pacific.

Off she goes for more cruising around the Baltic.

MSC Poesia in Tórshavn, Akureyri & Ísafjörður 26.-29. May 2011

MSC Poesia

IMO 9387073
Built 2008, Aker Yards Chantiers de l'Atlantique, St. Nazaire, France
Tonnage 93 330 GT
Length 293,80 m
Width 32,20 m
Draugth 7,70 m
3 013 passengers
5 Wärtsilä diesels, combined 58 000 kW
2 propellers
3 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 22 knots

MSC Poesia is the third ship in MSC Cruises' Musica-class (currently numbering a total of four ship and two more under construction). As I have undoubtedly mentioned several times in this blog, this class is a futher development from Festival Cruises Mistral of 1999, via two "intermediate" designs in the form of Festival Cruises' sisters European Stars and European Vision and MSC Cruises' own pair MSC Opera and MSC Lirica. The MSC Poesia was ordered in March 2006, her keel laid in December of the same year, she was launched in October 2007 and entered service in April 2008.

I sailed onboard the MSC Poesia on an 11-night cruise from Kiel (Germany) to Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. My three-part review from the cruise can be read from MaritimeMatters here. The photographs below show the MSC Poesia in three of the harbours during the cruise. Click on the individual images to view them in larger size.

MSC Poesia at Tórshavn's cozy (for the lack of a better word) harbour on 26 May 2011. The ship was a snug fit in the quay, but there was just enough space behind her for the local ferry Smyril to dock.

A view of the Poesia from Tórshavn waterfront, photographed from the back yard of a local hospital. 26. May 2011.

Two days later in Akureyri, Iceland. Here the quay was actually too short for the ship, which dwarfed the city. 28. May 2011.

A view down from the mountain overlooking Ísafjörður. The "city" had a little over 3 000 inhabitants, while the Poesia was full, meaning there were about 3 000 passengers onboard. 29. May 2011.

Princess Maria interiors, 10.-11. February 2011 + Princess Maria in St. Petersburg, 11. February 2011

The temperature outside is +28 degrees Celsius today. To balance what is probably the warmest day of the summer, I'd like to take you back to this year's February and my cruise to St. Petersburg onboard the Princess Maria. On that trip the outside temperatures were closer to -28 degrees centigrade. Some of these images have already been featured in the April 2011 issue of Ulkomatala. For those interested (who can speak Finnish), the June issue is now out and can be read at www.ulkomatala.net.

Princess Maria

IMO 7911533
Built 1981 Wärtsilä Turku, Finland
Tonnage 34 093 GT
Length 168,05 m
Width 29 m
Draught 6,72 m
Ice class 1 A Super
1638 passengers
395 cars
4 Wärtsilä-Pielstick diesels, combined 22 948 kW
2 controllable pitch propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 sterns thruster
Speed 21,2 knots

A word of the ship's interior design is perhaps in order. The original 1981 interiors of the (then-)Finlandia were designed by Vuokko Laakso, Carita Holthoer and Ilmo Issakainen. Most of the original interiors would perhaps be best described as late-70s functionalism - with the notable exception of the focal point of the ship, the two-deck high restaurant/night club complex in front of the ship, which had a less sterile decor featuring tiffany lamps and illuminated stained glass panels on the lower level (à la carte -restaurant) and a garden-like ambience for the terrace level (buffet). With the exception of a handful of the original trellis-backed chairs in the buffet, very little of the original decor remains and the layout has been altered in places, sometimes radically.

The current decor, mostly dating from the ship's time as DFDS Seaways' Queen of Scandinavia, is fairly subdued and somewhat minimalist, avoiding the excesses of modern ferry (and cruise ship) interiors. However, some of the changes made by the current operator St. Peter Line appear uncoordinated and do not fit the overall theme of the interiors.

The following is a somewhat limited section of photography from the ship's interiors. In part this is of no fault of my own as St. Peter Line did not allow photographing in the two most interesting interior spaces, the Nemo Casino/Exporer's restaurant complex on the front of deck 7 nor the XXXX Bar night club and the adjacent smoking room on deck 8.

Princess Maria interiors photographed on 10. and 11. February 2011. Click on the individual images to view larger size.

Looking aft from the sun deck on deck 9 on the very cold morning of 11. February 2011. The windows on the right are those of conference rooms added during a refit in 1985. This forward section of the outer deck is normally out-of-bounds, but on this trip there were only very few passengers onboard as the ship was returning from a docking in Helsinki and some of the onboard restrictions were relaxed.

Un-sunny sun deck on deck 8. Had it not been for the pretty impressive entryway into St. Petersburg (and struggling through the ice), the weather would have chased any sane person indoors.

The forward stairwell, with John Walravens striking a pose. The sculpture on the left, like so many other things onboard, is a DFDS addition.

The arcade on deck 7, facing forward with the tax-free shop on the left. The plastic wicker chairs are at odds with the otherwise refined decor.

Appareantly, gambling is all the rage in Russia as slot machines were liberally sprinkled on deck 7 even outside the casino. Annoying there was even a row of slot machines and garish neon signs right in front of the large forward window in the casino/restaurant complex, rendering the beautiful window useless.

The Columbus Night Club on deck 7. This area was originally conference rooms (with the evening's entertainment taking place largely in the restaurants) but DFDS sensibly opted for a separate night club/showroom, although it must be said the layout of the room is quite generic, almost a direct copy from the Mariella of 1985.

While the place was ptractically deserted on the outbound voyage, inbound from St. Petersburg with a large number of young Russians onboard the atmosphere was amazing and the entertainment (both the evening show and the bands) was amongst the best I've ever seen onboard any ship.

The Bake & Coffee cafeteria with it's attractive DFDS-era decor (this area was originally simply an extantion of the entrance lobby). My fellow passenger Mathias Saken (of Finnjetweb fame) tells me the food sold here was both affordable and tasty (I opted for the more expensive but very nice buffet on both nights).

DFDS Seaways are responsible for the crewing of the ship and their legacy show in quite many other places on the ship. This sticker (appareantly from the days the ship was sailing between Newcastle and IJmuiden) was in the mirror of our cabin bathroom.

Time to get back onboard... Princess Maria at the Morskoy Vokzal terminalin the afternoon of 11. February 2011. The somewhat unusual point of view of this photograph was archieved by climbing on top of a big pile of snow in the quay.