HADAG said passenger safety was written large and was well beyond regulated requirements for the 29.94m long and 8.15m wide newbuilding. She has wide embarkation ramps, facilities for the disabled and two DSB mini-slide rescue rafts. She also boasts an ELNA 4007 river radar system, supported by Elbe chart feed-in and DGPS with exact positioning.

Elbmeile carries 250 people, of whom 124 can be seated below deck and 60 above. The number of passengers carried on Hamburg's rivers and lakes by the HADAG fleet has risen by nearly 130% to five million since 1997.

Elbmeile , which draws 1.7m, is driven by two Volvo Penta D12-B MH 331kW Diesel engines and two 77kw Volvo Penta auxiliary units. Other propulsion plant includes 1.1m diameter Rolls Royce propellers providing 12 knots and a 50kW Jastram side thruster.

Five of the seven Type 2000 ferries have been built by SSB and HADAG's two latest ships have also been ordered there, HADAG spokeswoman Ilona Schnakenberg told MJ . A predecessor of the 2000 series, Neuenfelde , built by SSB in 1991, was meanwhile returning to service after conversion at the Colln and SSB facilities in Hamburg which reports said had cost ? 40,000.

Another similar older vessel, Blankenese , was modernised in 2004.

The flexible SSB, which grew out of the now defunct Heinrich Grube Shipyard, has only been producing small specialist workboats for five years. It also carries out repairs and conversions, but high-value specialist newbuilding dominates.