MS Regina Della Pace - Concept and Construction

Concept and Construction

SF Line begun planning for a new larger ferry for the Viking Line traffic between South-West Finland and Sweden in the mid-70's. The main person in charge of the design of the new ship was SF Line's founder and CEO Gunnar Eklund, with her son Nils-Erik Eklund and the company's technical inspector Kaj Jansson participating in the design process. Experiences from SF Line's previous newbuildings—particularly MS Aurella of 1973—heavily influenced the design of the new vessel, which was drawn with large car-decks. However, the new vessel was planned to be twice as large in terms of gross register tonnage as Aurella, and she was to have twice as many cabins.

In 1976 SF Line asked for tenders from various shipyards around the world for construction of a 1700-passenger, 540-car ferry. The cheapest bid, 80 million Finnish markka (20 million United States dollar by exchange rates of the time) was made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan who outbid the Finnish Wärtsilä shipyard by 36 million markka. On 13 September 1977 SF Line signed a contract with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for construction of a ferry. However, the funding of the project was subject to approval by the Bank of Finland and as at the time the employment level in Finland's shipyards were low, the Bank of Finland decided not to grant its approval to the project's funding with hopes of forcing the company to order a ship from a Finnish shipyard. After prolonged negotiations between both SF Line and the Bank of Finland as well as SF Line and Wärtsilä, SF Line placed an order with Wärtsilä on 17 March 1978. In the end the cost of the ship from Wärtsilä was approximately 15% more expensive than it would have been if built by Mitsubishi, despite a subvention of 17 million markka from the Bank of Finland.

As with most previous newbuildings of Viking Line, the details of the ship's interior design were entrusted to Robert Tillberg of Tillberg Design. Due to the ship's larger size her onboard services could be greatly upgraded from the previous-generation ships, with accommodations and public spaces close to standards of the time's cruise ships. For the first time on a Viking Line ship trafficking between continental Finland and Sweden the ship included an à la carte restaurant in addition to the traditional buffet (Rederi AB Slite's cruise ship SS Apollo III had already had an à la carte restaurant since 1976, but she only trafficked between the Åland islands and Sweden). SF Line's new ship was also given large conference facilities by the day's standards, capable of hosting 80 people.

The basic design of the newbuilding was apparently successful, as even before she was completed SF Line's fellow Viking Line members Rederi AB Slite and Rederi Ab Sally asked access to the ship's plans so that they could order additional ships of the same design. However, in the end Slite opted to order a slightly larger vessel from Meyer Werft in Germany, while SF Line refused to give Sally access to the new ship's plans and as a result Sally too placed an order with Meyer Werft.

The keel of SF Line's newbuilding was laid on 10 August 1978. She was launched from drydock on 24 November 1978 and christened MS Turella by Margareta Lundqvist, widow of the major SF Line shareholder Fraenk Lundqvist. On 18 January 1979 SF Line ordered a sister ship for the Turella from Wärtsilä, which eventually entered service in 1980 as MS Rosella. The construction of the Turella was completed on 4 June 1980 and she was delivered to SF Line on the same date, 11 days earlier than agreed.