MS ''Silja Symphony'' is a

cruiseferry A cruiseferry is a ship that combines the features of a cruise ship and a Ro-Pax ferry. Many passengers travel with the ships for the cruise experience, staying only a few hours at the destination port or not leaving the ship at all, while ot ...

owned by the

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and t ...

n shipping company Tallink Group,Tallink corporate structure, retrieved 2008-09-08
operated under their

Silja Line Silja Line is a Swedish-Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company Tallink, AS Tallink Grupp, for car, cargo and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy—today Tallink Silja osakeyhtiö, O ...

brand on a route connecting

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Finland to Stockholm, Sweden via

Mariehamn Mariehamn ( , ; fi, Maarianhamina ; la, Portus Mariae) is the capital of Åland, an autonomous territory under Finnish sovereignty. Mariehamn is the seat of the Government and Parliament of Åland, and 40% of the population of Åland live in t ...

. She was built in 1991 at

Masa-Yards STX Finland Oy, formerly Aker Yards Oy, was a Finnish shipbuilding company operating three shipyards in Finland, in Turku, Helsinki and Rauma, employing some 2,500 people. It was part of STX Europe, a group of international shipbuilding companie ...

Turku New Shipyard,

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

History

While the ''Silja Symphony'' was being built, the

Wärtsilä Marine Wärtsilä Marine ( fi, Wärtsilä Meriteollisuus; sv, Wärtsilä Marinindustri) was a Finnish shipbuilding company. The company was created in 1987 in order to improve shipbuilding productivity by combining the Wärtsilä and Valmet yards und ...

shipyard went bankrupt, and as a result she was delivered several months behind schedule on 30 May 1991. On 1 June she was put on the route

– Stockholm. The new ships, the first ones to have a

centerline promenade The promenade deck is a deck found on several types of passenger ships and riverboats. It usually extends from bow to stern, on both sides, and includes areas open to the outside, resulting in a continuous outside walkway suitable for ''promen ...

inside the ship, were highly popular but also proved to be somewhat expensive to operate. Unlike her sister, , the ''Symphony's'' funnel was constructed of

aluminium Aluminium (aluminum in AmE, American and CanE, Canadian English) is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately o ...

, which made the ship less heavy. ''Silja Symphony'' was also the third ship to arrive at the scene of the disaster on 28 September 1994. On 7 February 1996, the ship was grounded in the Stockholm archipelago. In December of the same year her engines were upgraded with so-called water-spray technology that greatly reduced nitrogen oxide emissions. In order to keep tax free sales on the

– Stockholm ships when the EU changed its tax free legislation, a stop at

was added to the route in June 1999. On 6 August 2001, a swarm of fish got sucked into the ship's cooling water intakes, which resulted in the engines shutting down due to overheating. Due to the engine problem the ship arrived in Helsinki some 1½ hours late. In January 2004 the ship made two special cruises to

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

for the Finnish company SOK. Similar cruises were made again in January 2005. In January–February 2006, just prior to the sale of Silja Line to

Tallink Tallink () is an Estonian shipping company operating Baltic Sea cruiseferries and ropax ships from Estonia to Finland, Estonia to Sweden to Sweden and Finland to Sweden. It is the largest passenger and cargo shipping company in the Baltic Sea ...

, the ''Symphony'' and her sister had their interiors extensively rebuilt at

Turku Repair Yard sv, Åbo Reparationsvarv Ab , native_name_lang = , romanized_name = , former_name = , type = , traded_as = , ISIN = , industry = ship and boat repair and maintenance , genre = , fate = , predecessor = Wärtsilä Marine , succe ...

Naantali Naantali (; sv, Nådendal) is a town in southwestern Finland, and, as a resort town during the summer, an important tourist centre of the country. The municipality has a population of (), and is located in the region of Southwest Finland, west ...

. During a storm on 9 January 2007 the ''Symphony'' accidentally rammed a boarding tube in the port of Mariehamn, resulting in approximately €600,000 worth of damage. There are some small external differences by which the ''Symphony'' can be told apart from her sister: the outer decks on the ''Symphony'' are painted light blue (they are green on the ''Serenade''), the eyes of the seal in ''Symphony''s funnel are blue whereas they are white with a blue outline on the ''Serenade'', and the light box with the ship's name on it is white on the ''Symphony'', but blue on the ''Serenade''.

References

External links

Tallink Silja

SILJAweb.com

Valkeat Laivat

''Silja Symphony'' Video Clips

{{DEFAULTSORT:Silja Symphony Ferries of Finland Ferries of Sweden Cruiseferries Ships built in Turku 1990 ships

History

See also

References

External links