Kvarken Link Celebrates Steel Cutting for New Ferry

The construction of the new ferry for Kvarken Link has started at the Rauma Marine Constructions shipyard during a traditional launch ceremony. The vessel, which will operate between Vaasa in Finland and Umeå in Sweden, will be the most environmentally friendly RoPax vessel in the world with a hybrid electric system with batteries and four highly efficient Wärtsilä 31DF dual-fuel engines capable of operating on liquefied natural gas (LNG) and biogas, which reduce CO2 emissions by 50% compared to the previous vessel.

The start of the construction was celebrated at the shipyard on Monday 16 September with a traditional steel cutting ceremony. Kvarken Link, owned by the City of Vaasa and the Municipality of Umeå, is the owner of the new vessel with a passenger capacity of 800 passengers and 1500 lane meters of cargo capacity for trucks and cars. The ferry will operate daily between Vaasa and Umeå.

This is the world's first RoPax ferry with a Clean Design class mark. The new vessel will replace the existing Wasa Express in traffic in the spring of 2021 and will be operated by Wasaline.

“I am so happy to participate in this historic milestone when the new ferry is started to be built. A lot of work is behind this milestone and I want to thank all the people involved in this project so far”, says Tomas Häyry, Chairman of the Board, Kvarken Link.

“Our ferry will be something exceptional and it will feature the most advanced and reliable technology. It will be the most environmentally friendly Ropax vessel built so far”, says Peter Ståhlberg, CEO of Wasaline.