Sardegna Bella
 As Wickersham before Prince Rupert, around 1970
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The Sardegna Bella was a ferry of the Italian Moby Lines that entered service in 1967 as the Stena Britannica . In the course of its 31 years of service, the ship sailed under different names and owners, before it was retired in 1998 after an engine failure and scrapped in Turkey in 2001 .
history
Stena Line
The Stena Britannica was built under construction number 55 in the Langesund mekaniske Verksted in Langesund and launched on November 25, 1966. On December 18, 1967, the delivery to the Stena Line took place, which put the ship into service two days later on the route from Gothenburg to Frederikshavn .
Service in Alaska
After just a few months in service, the Stena Britannica was sold to the state of Alaska in April 1968 and transferred to Vancouver in May 1968, where it was used as Wickersham on Alaska Marine Highway between Prince Rupert , Ketchikan , Juneau and Haines from June 1968 .
Rederi From Sally
In June 1974 the ship returned to Europe under the name Viking 6 and was used from July 1974 by the Rederi Ab Sally between Stockholm and Helsinki . In the same year the Viking 6 in Papenburg was modernized and equipped with a new cafeteria. In 1980 the ship was used for a few voyages between Kapellskär , Mariehamn and Naantali before returning to its old route from Stockholm to Helsinki in May 1980.
In June 1980 the Viking 6 was chartered to Brittany Ferries and renamed Goelo to be used between Saint-Malo and Portsmouth . In May 1982, after the charter expired, the ship returned to the Stena Line as the Viking 6 and switched to the route from Ramsgate to Dunkirk.
Sol Lines
After further charter trips for North Sea Ferries and the Juelsminde-Kalundborg Lines , the Viking 6 went into the possession of the Greek Sol Lines in December 1982 , which they renamed Sol Olympia . From April 1983 the ship's new area of operation was the route between Haifa , Limassol , Rhodes , Piraeus , Corfu , Dubrovnik and Venice .
In February 1985 the Sol Olympia was renamed Sun Express and transferred to Chatham , in order to be used between Ramsgate and Dunkirk from April 1985 by its former owner Rederi Ab Sally. In June 1985 it was given its old name Viking 6 again . On April 25, 1986, the ship completed its last voyage for Ab Sally and was then laid up in Dunkirk . In July 1986 the Viking 6 was to be chartered out again and was brought to Valencia for this purpose . However, the charter contract did not materialize, which is why the ship was launched.
Moby Lines
In November 1986 the Italian Moby Lines bought the Viking 6 and from January 1987 started using it as Moby Dream between La Spezia and Bastia . In 1993 the ship moved to Sardegna Line, a subsidiary of Moby Lines. From then on it was used as Sardegna Bella on the route from Livorno to Olbia .
In 1998 the Sardegna Bella had to be retired after 31 years of service due to a machine failure. It lay in Livorno for the next three years before being sold to Turkey for scrapping in July 2001. On September 24, 2001, the ship arrived in Aliağa , where it was dismantled in the following months.
