Masarrah
 As Express Aphrodite in Piraeus, 2000
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Masarrah is a ferry of the Saudi Arabian Namma Lines , which was commissioned in 1977 as St. Columba . The ship has been in service on the route from Suez to Jeddah since 2007 .
history
The St. Columba was built under construction number 214 in Aalborg Værft in Aalborg and was originally scheduled to be launched on July 16, 1976. Due to bad weather this was postponed to July 17th. After the takeover by Sealink British Rail on April 2, 1977 and several test drives, the ship was put into service on May 2, 1977 on the route from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire .
After a short layover in 1981, the St. Columba switched from February to March 1983 to the route from Fishguard to Rosslare . In May 1990, the ship went to the Stena Line , which it used from March 1991 as Stena Hibernia on its old route from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire.
After renovations, the Stena Hibernia was named Stena Adventurer in January 1996 and stayed on the same route, but was launched in October 1996 in Belfast . In November 1996 the ship was in service for a few days between Larne and Stranraer before it was sold as Express Aphrodite to Agapitos Express Ferries based in Piraeus in May 1997 .
In June 1997 the Express Aphrodite started service between Piraeus, Syros , Tinos and Mykonos . In November 1999, Minoan Flying Dolphins took over the ship, which was used on various routes off the Greek coast in the following years. On September 22, 2006 the Express Aphrodite was launched in Piraeus.
In December 2006, the ship went to Namma International Trading, based in Saudi Arabia, who renamed it Masarrah . In 2007 it started ferry service for the Namma Lines between Suez and Jeddah, where it is still in service.
Web links
- the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
- the ship on ferry-site.dk (English)