Sino-Korean joint venture Weidong Ferry Co has sold its oldest vessel to a company closely connected the the Arkoumanis family of Greece.
The deal for the 26,500-gt New Golden Bridge II (built 1990) appears to have been concluded earlier this month and the ship is now en route to Piraeus under its new shortened name of Golden Bridge.
The IHS Ships Register indicates that the Japanese-built vessel is owned by single-ship entity Galaxy Seaways. It is managed by A-Ships Management, an Arkoumanis-controlled outfit that manages ships on behalf of the family’s ferry operation, European Seaways.
TradeWinds understands that the company has been attempting to secure tonnage for some time as it wants to strengthen its position on the highly competitive Adriatic ferry service between Italy and Greece.
European Seaways operates two of the oldest and smaller ferries in service across the Adriatic: the 10,600-gt Galaxy (built 1979) and the freshly acquired, 13,400-gt Prince (built 1974).
Competitors such as ANEK Lines, Superfast Ferries and Grimaldi Lines all have much larger and newer ships.
Smaller Greek ferry operators have struggled to find new tonnage to replace their existing ships on the secondhand market as Japanese ferry operators are holding onto their tonnage for much longer than they have historically.
The Japanese ferry operators traditionally sold off their ships at between 10 to 15 years of age as hefty shipbuilding incentives encouraged them to order more frequently.
With those incentives now largely removed, the Japanese are less willing to sell their ships. This has lead to more recent Greek, Indonesian and Filipino purchases being made in China and South Korea.
In turn, the Chinese and South Koreans have been replacing their older ships that were originally sourced secondhand from Japan with newbuildings ordered at Chinese and South Korean yards.
Weidong has replaced the New Golden Bridge II with a 30,300-gt ropax newbuilding completed last month at Hyundai Mipo Dockyard.
Earlier this year, ANEK turned to Weihai International for its tonnage requirements, buying the Japanese-built, 32,100-gt ropax ferry Grand Spring (built 1991), which has operated as the Asterion II since March.
Hungry Greek ferry operators are being given another opportunity to get their hands on a large Chinese-owned ferry.
Weihai Jiadong International Shipping is inviting offers on its 24,100-gt ropax ferry Grand Peace (built 1991). It has been replaced by the 33,200-gt newbuilding New Grand Peace, which was completed by AVIC Weihai Shipyard in October.
