Christening of the new E-Flexer ferry Stena Estelle (Source: Stena Line)
07.09.2022from Riviera News
E-Flexer Ferry Stena Estelle will pass the Gdynia-Karlskrona line
Stena Line has held the naming ceremony for its newest ferry, which will sail the Baltic Sea between Poland and Sweden.
The 240-metre, 1,200-passenger vessel, one of Stena’s E-Flexer ferries, is one of two sister vessels that will strengthen Stena Line’s operations in the Baltics. Stena Ebb is expected to join the fleet in the course of 2022.
Both ships are “up to 30% more energy efficient” than previous ships in the fleet, and all Stena e-flexers are delivered gas-ready to enable conversion to methanol or LNG fuel. The two ships are equipped to use shore power during port calls to reduce emissions and can be converted to battery hybrids in the future.
The ships are among the most modern and efficient ropax ships in the world. Stena’s first three E-Flexer vessels began operations in the Irish Sea in 2020 and 2021.
Stena Estelle and sister Stena Ebb are the two largest E-Flexer ferries delivered and will increase capacity on the Karlskrona-Gdynia route. The ships have 263 cabins and a total cargo capacity of 3,600 lane meters, meaning they can carry 15% more cargo than current e-flexers.
The deployment of the two large e-flexers is the latest investment in Stena Line’s Baltic Sea expansion, which so far includes modernizing the fleet on the Nynäshamn-Ventspils and Travemünde-Liepaja routes and establishing a new route from Nynäshamn to Hanko.
“The Baltic Sea is still a dynamically growing economic area. Customer demand is growing every day and we are fortunate to be able to meet that demand not only with the right service attitude and hard work, but also with a modern and efficient fleet. And if we can add a nice new ship like Stena Estelle On a day like this we are even more convinced that the success of recent years in this region was just a start,” said Niclas Mårtensson, CEO of Stena Line.