European Express
 The European Express in Piraeus, February 2013
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The European Express was a ferry of the Greek shipping company NEL Lines put into service in 1974 as Takachiho Maru . It was last used on the route from Thessaloniki and Kavala via Limnos , Mytilini and Chios to Samos . The ship has been inactive since November 2014 and was sold to Turkey for demolition in January 2019 .
history
The Takachiho Maru was built under the hull number 322 in the Nippon Kokan shipyard in Shimizu and was delivered to the Japanese shipping company Nippon Car Ferry in February 1974. The commissioning took place in the same month on the route from Kawasaki to Hyūga .
In the following years the ferry was sold several times. From 1992 it was used between Osaka and Hyūga and from 1996 between Kobe and Hyūga. In 1998, the ship ended its service in Japan after 24 years and became the resale launched .
In September 1999, the Greek shipping company Access Ferries found a buyer for the Takachiho Maru , which was given the shortened name Ho Maru for the crossing to Europe . In the same year the ship was renamed Millennium Express and from May 2000 it was put into service for Access Ferries between Piraeus , Limassol and Haifa .
In addition to the service for Access Ferries, the Millennium Express was also chartered out and was used between March 2001 and May 2003 in the ferry service between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico . In July 2003 the ship switched to the route from Brindisi to Çeşme , but was decommissioned after only two months in September 2003. From February 2004 the ferry was chartered by CNAN between Oran , Marseille , Sète and Barcelona before it was launched in January 2006 in Drapetsona .
After an overhaul of the machinery in Hamburg in September 2006, the ship was named European Express in May 2007 . The operator of the ship was initially Algerie Ferries , then from 2008 Comanav and finally after a longer layover in 2009 from July 2010 the Greek NEL Lines. The European Express was now used between Piraeus, Chios and Mytilini.
On October 10, 2010, the ship collided with the Vitzentzos Kornaros ferry during a turning maneuver in the port of Piraeus , with both ships sustaining only slight damage. During its further service life, the European Express changed routes several times, most recently since July 2014 between Thessaloniki, Kavala, Limnos, Mytilini, Chios and Samos. After the charter contract with NEL Lines, which was in financial difficulties, expired in November 2014, the ship did not return to service for its owner Access Ferries, but was laid up first in Drapetsona and then in Piraeus.
After more than four years of layover, the European Express was sold to Turkey for demolition in January 2019 and renamed Express . On January 29, 2019, the ship arrived at the Aliağa scrapping yards .
Web links
- The ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- The ship on ferry-site.dk (English)