The ship was built at the Chinese shipyard Zhejiang Shipyard in Ningbo for the Braack Schiffahrt company in Hamburg and delivered in November 1998. It came under the flag of Antigua and Barbuda with home port Hamburg. The company Rohden Bereederung took over the management and employment of the ship. In 2005 the ship was sold to a company of the Leeraner shipping company Briese Schiffahrt and renamed the Islander and later the BBC Islander . Briese Schiffahrt sold the ship in 2008 to the Dutch company Kornet & Zonen, which had it loaded by Amasus Shipping under the Dutch flag with its home port of Werkendam as Eemslift Christiaan . In 2016 the ship was finally sold to AW Ship Management and brought under the flag of Gibraltar as Helena .
In order to give passengers the opportunity to reach St. Helena by sea even after the RMS St. Helena was discontinued , it was announced that the ship would be equipped with cabins for twelve passengers. According to the FAQ on the operator's website, however, there has been no need for passenger seats so far; a cabin with four berths will be set up, which corresponds to a cabin on the C deck on board the RMS St. Helena . The passenger area has been in operation for a maximum of four people since November 2019.
The deckhouse is far aft. In front of the deckhouse there are two cargo holds closed with folding hatch covers . The ship is equipped with two cranes on the port side , each of which can lift 40 t. The ship is prepared for the transport of containers . The container capacity is 406 TEU . In addition to the two holds, containers can also be loaded on deck. Here there is space for twelve 20-foot containers one behind the other and up to four layers on top of each other. The front ten rows can be found on the hatch covers, the rear two rows on deck in front of the deckhouse (the engine room is below deck here ).
