MS Svea Regina

On 5 June 1972 the Svea Regina set on her maiden voyage from Stockholm to Helsinki.[1] The Aallotar had entered service four months previously, and with a Svea Regina joining her sister on the route, daily year-round service was initiated between the capitals of Finland and Sweden for the first time.[3] Despite doubts voiced, even by people within the Silja consortium,[6] the Aallotar and Svea Regina proved to be a phenomenal success.[3] In practice the ships proved to be too small for the route within their first year of service, and already on 4 June 1973 FÅA, Svea and Bore placed orders for three larger ships to replace the Svea Regina and Aallotar on the Helsinki service.[9]

The Svea Regina ended service on the Helsinki–Stockholm route on 24 May 1975 after less than three years, when she was replaced by the new and larger MS Svea Corona. The Svea Regina was initially moved to the Turku–Mariehamn–Stockholm service on the same date, but she returned to the Helsinki–Stockholm route during a docking of the Svea Corona between 20 June and 17 July of the same year. Following this she returned to the Turku–Stockholm service until 4 October 1975, when she joined the Aallotar in Turku–Norrtälje service.[1][10] The line to Norrtälje was closed a year later, on 1 September 1976, and the Svea Regina was laid up in Stockholm.[3]

Between 2 June and 30 August 1977 the Svea Regina was chartered to Compagnie Nationale Algerienne de Navigation Maritime (CNAN) for services from Marseilles to Algiers, Bejaia and Oran. Following the end of the charter she returned to Norrtälje for another lay-up period. In March 1978 the ship briefly returned to Silja Line service on the Turku–Stockholm route, before chartered as an accommodation vessel to Det Bergenske D/S A/S between 31 March and 20 May 1978. Following the end of the charter the ship again returned to Silja Line's Turku–Stockholm service for the duration of the 1978 summer season, after which she was again laid up, this time in Turku.

On 18 September 1978 the Svea Regina again returned to service this time for Silja Line's cruise traffic. Four days later she was sold by Rederi AB Svea to the Finland Steamship Company, and on 2 October 1978 her name was shortened to Regina and she was re-registered to Helsinki. Her initial service with Silja Cruise proved short, as she was chartered to Polferries on 27 October 1978, for use on their Helsinki–Nynäshamn–Gdańsk service.[1] Polferries had also chartered the Aallotar for the same service, and for a while the two sisters again served together on the same route.[8] The charter contracts for both the Regina and Aallotar included a purchase options, but although a Memorandum of Agreement about the sale of both ships had been signed in November and December 1978, respectively, in the end Polferries decided to purchase the Aallotar but not the Regina.[1][8]

The charter to Polferries ended in April 1979, and subsequently the Regina was chartered to a German travel agency for cruises from Kiel to the Norwegian Fjords from 20 March until 12 June 1979. After that charter she again returned to Turku–Stockholm service for Silja Line until 1 September 1979. After this she was briefly chartered to Brittany Ferries for their St Malo–Portsmouth service. Between 28 October and 29 November 1979 she returned to Turku–Stockholm service for one last time, for duration of the docking of the MS Wellamo.[1]

Tallink in Tallinn, 1994

On 29 November 1979 the Regina was sold to a holding company of the Karageorgis Lines, renamed Mediterranean Sun and re-registered in Greece. In 1980 she entered service on Karageorgis Lines' Patras–Ancona route. During the same year her ownership was transferred to a different Karageorgis Lines holding company, and she was re-registered in Cyprus. She remained on the Patras–Ancona service until 1981, when she was laid up in Patras.[1] In 1982 the Mediterranean Sun was sold to the Maritime Company of Lesvos, again re-registered in Greece, renamed Odysseas Eleytis and placed in NEL Lines service on the Piraeus–Lesvos, Rhodes–Limassol–Alexandria and Piraeus–Rhodes services.[1][2] In December 1983 the Odysseas Eleytis participated in the evacuation of Palestine Liberation Organization members, including Yasser Arafat, from Lebanon.[1][3]

In June 1985 the Odysseas Eleytis was sold to the DFDS subsidiary SeaEscape, renamed Scandinavian Sky and re-registered at The Bahamas. She was radically rebuilt at Werft Nobiskrug, Rendsburg, Germany for use on SeaEscape's Miami–Bahamas cruise service, on which she entered service in August 1985.[1][2]