Alaska Marine Highway System’s newbuild, the Tazlina (being built above), was launched mid-May is now being fitted out. A sister vessel is expected to arrive in the spring of 2019.

ANEK Lines’ 31,804gt/1991 built Asterion II (formerly the Japanese vessel Grand Spring) was due to replace the Asterion on the Patras-Venice sailings from 21st June following refit at Perama. However, her debut was delayed by a week.

Bay Ferries’ The Cat entered service for the 2018 season between Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, and Portland, Maine, on 8th June. There are 108 daily round trips scheduled for this season, which runs to 8th October.

Bornholm’s new and delayed 18,500gt Ro-Pax ferry Hammershus completed her first sea-trials in the waters around Rauma, Finland, in late June.

Clare Island Ferry Co. welcomed their latest vessel, the 69gt/1975 built former CalMac ferry Eigg (above), to Clare Island on 30th June. The Island Class vessel joins former fleet mate Clew Bay Queen. The latter was built in 1972 as CalMac’s Kilbrannan and went to Arranmore, County Donegal, in 1992 as the Arainn Mhor before moving onto Clare Island in 2008. The Eigg differs from her sister by being slightly longer and received an elevation to her bridge deck to permit the carriage of an HGV.

CLdN will expand their Ro-Ro network from mid-September with a new direct shortsea shipping service to Santander in Northern Spain from Zeebrugge with two calls per week. The rotation of the new service will be the following: Zeebrugge-Santander-Zeebrugge-Purfleet-Zeebrugge. With this new service CLdN will not only be able to offer the Santander to Zeebrugge service but also offer customers the choice of onward travel on other CLdN to the U.K, Sweden, Denmark and Ireland.

Condor Ferries’ 5,007gt/1997 Condor Rapide (above) suffered a cracked waterjet in June and was sent to the synchrolift at Cherbourg for repairs. SMS, a Southampton based ship repairer and marine engineering services provider, completed this, the company’s first ever major high speed craft (HSC) refit in France on 22nd June. The work took a week and the Incat built vessel required repairs to her Wartsila waterjet propulsion system on the port outer main engine, minor structural repairs and planned electrical upgrades. The Condor Liberation covered both the Poole and St. Malo schedules in the absence of the Condor Rapide with the latter returning to service on 23rd June. A day later the 11,166gt/1996 built Commodore Goodwill went to A&P Falmouth for dry docking. The 14,000gt/1999 built Commodore Clipper took over the overnight sailings from Portsmouth that same day with the chartered 7,606gt/1998 built Arrow covering to ‘Clipper’s normal rota.

DFDS announced on 13th June that it has ordered an additional Ro-Ro newbuilding for delivery in the first half of 2020 from the Jinling Shipyard in China. The newbuilding is similar to the four previously ordered ships and  offers the same 6,700 lanemetre/450 trailer freight capacity. DFDS’ fleet renewal programme also includes two Ro-Pax ferries to be delivered in 2021 for deployment in the Baltic route network. In addition, one chartered Ro-Pax (from Stena RoRo’s E-Flexer fleet) will be delivered in 2021 for deployment on the Dover-Calais route, replacing the Calais Seaways. DFDS has also entered into an agreement with Ukrainian operator Ukrferry to sell two combined freight and passenger ferries, the 25,606gt/1989 built Kaunas Seaways and the 22,341gt/1987 built Vilnius Seaways. Delivery of the ferries was scheduled for July 2018. The ferries have been on time charter to Ukrferry for several years and deployed on routes in the Black Sea. The sale will affect the employment of around 70 crew members who DFDS will seek to employ on it’s own route network to the greatest possible extent. The sale of the ferries is expected to entail a profit of around DKK 20 million. UKrferry already owns the 24,084gt/1988 built sister vessel Greifswald, which was arrested in April following deficiencies.

E-Ferry, an EU-funded ferry project is nearing fruition when the 100% electric, emission-free, medium-sized vehicle and passenger ferry, to be christened Ellen, is launched. The 4 megawatt vessel is undergoing finishing at the Danish Søby Yard and will operate a 10.7 nautical mile route between Søby and Fynshav and a 9.6 nautical route between Søby and Faaborg.

The Ferguson Shipyard at Port-Glasgow is to develop the world’s first renewables-powered hydrogen ferry, the HySeas III. The shipyard and its European partners won a bid for EU funding support that would enable the building and launch of the world’s first sea-going car and passenger ferry fuelled by hydrogen. Early last year Norwegian Shipbuilder Fiskerstrand announced its intention to develop a ferry with a hydrogen fuel cell.

Fjord1’s newbuild, the 3,000gt Hadaroy, was launched at the Cemre Shipyard in Turkey on 12th June as NB59. She is the first of a new series of five battery-powered ferries and has capacity for 120 cars and 399 passengers.

The Grimaldi Group has ordered six more newbuilds of the Grimaldi Green Fifth Generation (GG5G) class, bringing the total to twelve, to be built at the Jinling Shipyard in China. The ships will be equipped with lithium batteries for use in port (being recharged by shaft generators and solar panels) and will offer 7,800 lanemetres of capacity. Delivery will be 2020-2022 with nine of the dozen going to Grimaldi and 3 to Finnlines. The company has also taken over the 30,902gt/2002 built Superfast XII (above) as part of the Hellenic Seaways deal between Attica Holdings and Grimaldi. The ship retains her Superfast red hull but has been renamed Cruise Ausonia.

IoMSPCo is being bought out by the Manx Government. The Tynwald voted in favour of the idea on 12th May. The Government will pay £124m for the company with the Treasury Minister stating that the deal would bring operations into public ownership. However, the Government also stated that it would not take over the day-to-day running so the ferry operation is not being nationalised. In July 2017, the Manx parliament rejected the operator’s “best and final offer” to continue services beyond 2026. Many people hoped the deal would lead to cheaper passenger and freight fares but, in the real world, it costs a lot of money to run a ferry company therefore little will change in that respect.

Minoan Lines has acquired the 4,927gt/2005 built former Hellenic Seaways fast ferry Highspeed 7, now the Santorini Palace. The vessel commenced a new daily schedule from the port of Heraklion to Santorini, Ios, Paros and Mykonos on 13th June.

Naviera Armas tonnage re-opened the Portimão (Portugal)-Funchal (Madeira) ferry service on 2nd July. The service is weekly until late September and was previously operated by Naviera Armas until closure six years ago. Armas is supplying the 19,976gt/2008 built Volcan de Tijarafe (on charter) to route operator ENM (Empresa de Navegação Madeirense).

P&O Ferries reported the highest freight volumes yet on its new dedicated lift unit freight service between Zeebrugge and Hull on 4th July, with the second quarter of 2018 seeing a fifth consecutive quarter of growth. The company transported 8,532 lift units on the dedicated freight service between April and June, an increase of 4% on the first quarter and the best three month period since the route began in spring 2017. The 5,067gt/2000 built container vessel Elisabeth operates on the route and makes three round trips per week between Zeebrugge and Hull, complementing P&O Ferries’ existing combined tourist and freight service. The news comes a month after P&O Ferries significantly raised capacity on its Zeebrugge-Teesport route.

Polferries’ chartered 27,744gt/2014 built Nova Star was, at the time of writing, expected to enter service on 9th July due to technical issues. The previous start date was 27th June.

Red Funnel Ferries’ new £7 million and 363gt passenger catamaran Red Jet 7 was craned into the water at Wight Shipyard, East Cowes on 6th June prior to completion and sea trials. The naming ceremony is scheduled for 24th July. Wight Shipyard also delivered the 20m tourist catamaran Jacobite Maverick (above) in June and she made her way up to her new home of Loch Ness with Jacobite Cruises.

SeaJets were linked to the 25,460gt/1975 built former ANEK Lines ferry Lato but she has in fact arrived at Aliaga for scrapping under the temporary name of Talaton.

Seatruck Ferries has unveiled plans to increase capacity on Warrenpoint to Heysham route by 30% by deploying two larger freight ferries on the route later this summer, in direct response to growing demand for unaccompanied trailer space and enabling the firm to carry 30,000 additional trailers annually. The 19,722gt/2012 built Seatruck Precision and Seatruck Performance are returning from charter to Stena Line (as Stena Precision/Performer). The vessel switch follows exponential growth for Seatruck in recent years with unaccompanied trailer volumes rising by more than 250% since 2007. Seatruck now operates 76 departures per week across three Irish Sea routes, moving around 20% of the total Irish Sea Roll-on Roll-off freight volumes.

Stena Line will redeploy three ships after the summer season as part of the company’s growth strategy on the Göteborg-Frederikshavn route. The 14,551gt/2005 built Ro-Pax vessel Hammerodde (acquired from Faergen) will replace the 13,294gt/1982 built Stena Gothica in the middle of September. This will provide additional freight and passenger/car capacity. The Stena Gothica will then return to her former route of Travemünde-Liepaja where she will operate together with the Urd to boost freight capacity. The ship will replace the 24,206gt/2000 built Stena Nordica which will move to the Karlskrona-Gdynia route in October after the charter of the 7,616gt/1979 built Gute concludes and she is returned to Gotlandsbolaget. The Stena Nordica has a double deck loading configuration, which gives significant time savings during loading and unloading. The ship will also complement the Stena Baltica.

Tirrenia has chartered CLdN’s 16,342gt/ 2012 built Ro-Ro ship Severine (above) to boost freight capacity on the route to Malta, during summer. The vessel will be marketed by both Tirrenia and GNV.

U.N. Ro-Ro, now owned by DFDS, has started to make calls at the Port of Patras, Greece. The first vessel was the 29,004gt/2005 built UN Pendik whilst on the Istanbul-Trieste service.

Wightlink’s new Portsmouth-Fishbourne superferry Victoria of Wight completed her sea trials in the Sea of Marmara in June and was being made ready to be towed home to the Solent in early July by the 975gt/2007 built offshore support and towing vessel Amber II. The voyage will take 18-20 days approximately.