M/S Fantaasia

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M/S Fantaasia is a car and passenger cruiseferry owned by the Estonian ferry company Tallink. She is currently under charter to COMANAV, Morocco. She was built by Wärtsilä Shipyards, Turku, Finland for SF Line for use in Viking Line traffic.

[edit] History

The cheapest bid to build SF Line's new ferry was actually made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, but the Finnish Government subsidiarised Wärtsilä so that they could eventually underbid Mitsubishi and hence get more jobs to Finland. The new ship's interior and exterior design was basically an extended version of M/S Aurella from 1973. The ship, eventually named M/S Turella, was delivered on 4 July 1979, 11 days ahead of schedule. She was initially placed on Viking Line's Turku - Mariehamn - Stockholm service, but when her sister M/S Rosella was delivered the next year, Turella was moved to the less prestigious Naantali - Mariehamn - Kappelskär route.

In September 1988 SF Line took delivery of the new M/S Amorella, which replaced Rosella on the Turku - Stockholm route. Originally SF Line had agreed to sell the Rosella to Stena Line upon delivery of the new ship. However due to the Amorella being delivered seven months behind schedule the Rosella could not be delivered to Stena when originally agreed. In the end the Turella was sold instead of Rosella, as it was generally in a better condition and easier to convert for the traffic Stena planned her for. After rebuilding at Cityvarvet, Gothenburg, the Rosella re-emerged as M/S Stena Nordica (a name carried by many Stena Line ships over the years). Stena Nordica was placed a route connecting Gothenburg to Fredrikshavn in Denmark and Moss in Norway. She also occasionally served on the Gotheburg - Kiel route when the ships normally sailing that route were docked. In 1996 Stena Nordica was rebuilt at Öresundsvarvet, Landskrona, Sweden, transferred to the fleet of Stena's subsidiary Lion Ferries and renamed M/S Lion King. During the next 1,5 years she sailed on routes Halmstad (Sweden) - Grenå (Denmark) and Karlskona (Sweden) - Gdynia (Poland).

In the end of the year 1997 Lion King was sold to Tallink, who renamed her M/S Fantaasia and placed her on the Helsinki - Tallinn route (where she served alongside her old Viking Line fleetmate M/S Meloodia). In 2002 after the delivery of the new M/S Romantika Fantaasia was moved to the Tallinn - Stockholm route, where she sailed alongside another old fleetmate from the Viking Line days, M/S Regina Baltica. In 2004 the new M/S Victoria I replaced Fantaasia on the Tallinn - Stockholm route, and from the start of April of the same year Fantaasia opened a new Helsinki - Tallinn - St. Petersburg route for Tallink. Due to a rise in port fees issued by the Russian government and due to visa regulations not being prognosed to get any better between Russia and the European Union as it had been presumed when the line was started, the line was terminated by Tallink on January 2, 2005. Fantaasia was swiftly chartered to Algerie Ferries for duration of nine months, during which she sailed between France and Algeria. After the end of the charter she spent some five months laid up in Tallinn until she was placed on Tallink's new Riga - Stockholm route in April 2006. However after little over a month of traffic she was replaced by the larger M/S Regina Baltica, and subsequently chartedred to COMANAV until January 2007.