Helsinki Shipyard is planning to auction a cruise ship newbuilding it has just completed for Swan Hellenic.
The recently relaunched cruise operator is playing down the move, claiming the tender sale for the 10,700-gt polar class cruise ship SH Vega (built 2022) is part of a process required to extricate the ship from a leasing deal with sanctioned Russian state-owned lessor GTLK.
In a statement to TradeWinds, Cyprus-based Swan Hellenic said that GTLK defaulted on payments for the SH Vega, and with all its assets in the European Union frozen, it would not be able to take delivery.
Helsinki Shipyard is advertising the tender sale of the SH Vega on its website. The ship will be sold on an “as-is, where-is” basis. Bids are to be submitted by email by 24 June. The winner will be announced on 1 July, with the ship handed over 18 days later.
Swan Hellenic’s first cruise with the ship is scheduled to depart the Norwegian port of Tromso on 20 July.
In a statement to TradeWinds, Swan Hellenic claimed it would meet that deadline.
“Whilst the tender process is in progress and will be officially completed soon, Swan Hellenic, as a priority buyer, has already submitted the bid and is at an advanced stage of preparing the documents for the transfer of the title on SH Vega and is ready to take full control over the vessel at the completion of the tender,” it said.
“We expect there will be no change of plans in the scheduled cruises on July 20th with the Arctic season from Tromso.”
The decision to finance its first three newbuildings through a leasing deal with GTLK set Swan Hellenic off to a rough start.
The first ship, the 10,700-gt SH Minerva (built 2021), was delivered at the end of last year, and managed to complete a season of Antarctic cruises before sanctions against GTLK forced it into lay-up.
Swan Hellenic told TradeWinds in April that it has exercised purchase options provided for under the leasing agreements with subsidiaries of GTLK, a process that had begun before the lessor was sanctioned by the EU a month after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
The SH Minerva has been docked in Uruguay while the company works its way through the lengthy process required to buy a sanctioned asset.
Chief executive Andrea Zito told Seatrade Cruise News in May that the company had been given the green light in principle, but there was no definitive date for the transaction to close.
Swan Hellenic is one of three cruise start-ups that have suffered disruptions to their operations because of their links to sanctioned Russian entities.
Norwegian cruise and ferry company Havila Kystruten, which also financed its newbuildings through leasing deals with GTLK, revealed last week that it was being forced to go to the High Court in London as part of its battle to become the legal owner of the 15,500-gt cruise ferry Havila Capella (built 2021) and secure its interests in other newbuildings under construction.
On Friday, UK-based Tradewind Voyages said it has put a hiatus on taking new bookings because its parent company’s Russian lender has been sanctioned.
