Stena Baltica ferry accidents and incidents

October 2020Structural and Technical Issues

In October 2020, the ship charterer Stena Line announced the expanding of its Baltic Sea fleet with the deployment in 2021 of two RoPax ships on the Sweden-Latvia route Nynashamn-Ventspils. The deployment increased Stena's cargo capacity by 30%.

The two vessels (Stena Mersey and Stena Lagan) are sisterships, both 2005-built (at Cantiere Navale Visentini Shipyard) and were operating Stena Line’s Irish Sea route Belfast-Liverpool. Before starting the new Baltic Sea service, both cruiseferries were drydocked (for lengthening and modernization) by Stena RoRo and subsequently renamed - Stena Mersey to "Stena Baltica", and Stena Lagan to "Stena Scandica".

The lengthening of both ferries was done at Turkon Holding's Sedef Shipyard (in Tuzla/İstanbul, Turkey). The project included adding a 36-m (118-ft) long pre-assembled midship section, to a new LOA length 222 m (728 ft). Fun fact is that the STENA ships Baltica-MERSEY and Scandica-LAGAN (like all Cantiere Navale Visentini-built ferries) were originally constructed as two separate sections. These huge hull+superstructure sections were prefabricated, assembled, launched and later joined together in the shipbuilder's drydock hall in Porto Viro (~45 km / 28 mi south of Venice Italy).

Note: The 2007-built Stena Baltica (IMO 9364978) in 2020 was renamed to "Cotentin" and chartered to Brittany Ferries for the UK-France route Portsmouth-Le Havre. The vessel was chartered to Stena Line (by the shipowner SOMANOR) for the period 2013-2020 to serve the Sweden-Poland route Karlskrona-Gdynia.