The naming ceremony took place in the ferry's homeport of the Finnish Vaasa on 25 August, with Marjo-Riitta Häyry as the godmother.

The €120m-worth newbuild is going to sail for her first roundtrip between Vaasa and the Swedish Umeå on Saturday 28 August.

The ferry is 150 m-long and 26 m-wide, offering room for 800 passengers and 1,500 lane metres of cargo capacity.

The vessel was constructed at the Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC), providing around 800 person-year of work.

The construction works started in September 2019; keel-laying took place in February 2020. Launching was conducted in September the same year, while the first sea trial was this June.

Wasaline will run Aurora Botnia on either liquefied natural gas (LNG) or liquid biogas (LBG). The ferry can connect to an onshore power supply. According to the company, she is "[...] the first car and passenger ferry in the world to meet the criteria of the Clean Design class notation."

"I would like to thank everyone involved in this project, especially our staff, who have made this possible. We are now seeing the result of years of work and witnessing a historic day together: a ship designed for Kvarken will start operating. Aurora Botnia is the most environmentally friendly large ro-pax ferry in the world, and its degree of domestic origin exceeds 80 per cent," Peter Ståhlberg, Wasaline's CEO, highlighted.

Jyrki Heinimaa, RMC's CEO and President, added, "We've had a wonderful opportunity to build such a magnificent vessel, which is totally unique even from a global perspective. I would like to thank the client for their excellent cooperation, which has enabled us to successfully complete the project, despite the very challenging conditions [due to the coronavirus pandemic the delivery was slightly postponed]."

Photo: Wasaline