The company has purchased for €8.5m the 1987-built Sailor, most recently owned by Navirail and chartered to DFDS for serving the Kapellskär-Paldiski route.

The 157 m-long and 25 m-wide Sailor offers 1,500 lane metres of cargo capacity, plus room for up to 119 passengers.

The vessel was handed over to Tallink Grupp on 9 July. The company hasn't revealed where the newest purchase will be deployed.

"The recent crisis has made it very clear that we need to strengthen our fleet with ro-pax vessels to ensure that whatever happens in the world, we are able to react to any changes fast and have the necessary flexibility within our fleet to scale up either ro-ro cargo or passenger transport as necessary," Paavo Nõgene, CEO, Tallink Grupp, commented.

He furthered, "During the COVID-19 pandemic there was an urgent and great need to secure ro-ro cargo transportation between our home markets and this was mainly done with our passenger ferries, that are geared for operating feasibly if they carry both cargo and passengers. Carrying only ro-ro cargo with a minimum number of passengers with such large passenger ferries is not economically viable and can only be done for a short time with subsidies."

"For example, at present we have increased cargo capacity on the only Estonia-Sweden route between Paldiski and Kapellskär with our passenger ferry Isabelle. The vessel predominantly transports cargo only as tourism between Estonia and Sweden is still not recommended due to the Swedish coronavirus situation, which in essence means that we are transporting over 600 empty cabins back and forth between the two countries every day. Operating passenger ferries for cargo transportation alone isn't cost effective for our business," Nõgene explained.

"With the above in mind and with several lessons learned from the recent pandemic, it thus makes perfect sense to diversify and strengthen our fleet for the future," he summed up.

Photo: DFDS