Ferry makes 7,000nm Atlantic crossing to Canadian home

Dutch ship delivery specialist Redwise made the vessel sea secure and delivered the Norwegian double-ended ferry after a 34-day voyage.

With the name Fanafjord, the vessel has operated in a traditional Norwegian fjord service since 2006. In 2024 it was refitted for its new owner, the Canadian government, to work on the other side of the Atlantic serving the route between Wood Island (Prince Edward Island) and Caribou, Nova Scotia, carrying the new name Northumberland.

The parties involved had to consider how to get the vessel from Norway to Canada and turned to Redwise, a specialist company familiar with delivering all shapes and sizes of vessels.

Double-ended ferries are purpose built for relatively sheltered waters but are not seagoing craft as such, so special attention was called for to complete the operation safely and successfully.

Route details

Because of winter, the shorter North Atlantic route was ruled out in favour of a more indirect southern one.

Planning took two years, and involved crew familiarisation at Fiskarstrand near Ålesund, Norway.

Preparations included survey for a change of flag and compliance with strict EU legislation, while tank containers were installed for the extra fuel required.

Bow doors and ramps were sea-fastened and secured and additional provisions and stores loaded on board, the work monitored by insurers and marine warranty surveyors.

The vessel left Fiskarstrand just before Christmas 2024 and sailed south through the inner, sheltered fjord route to Stavanger, where the open seas were navigated across the North Sea and through the English Channel and Bay of Biscay.

With no weather delays, the first re-fuelling stop was made at Mindelo in the Cape Verde islands, where additional tank containers were installed for the next leg across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.

After waiting out a bad spell of weather offshore St Kitts, Northumberland headed north to Hamilton, Bermuda, where empty fuel containers were offloaded and final preparations made for the last leg to Nova Scotia.

This part of the voyage proved to be the most challenging due to sea and weather conditions, but the vessel ‘kept up well under the ever-watching eye of the master and crew’, according to Redwise.

Late in January 2025 the ferry arrived at the icy shores of Nova Scotia, where it was welcomed into the town by the community and journalists, its inbound path cleared by the Canadian icebreaker Jean Goodwill. The new addition for Northumberland Ferries is due to enter service in May, following the idle winter season.

Completed by Aker Yards, Brattvaag in 2007 as Fanafjord for Fjord Line, the 6,904gt, 129m LOA, 587 passenger capacity ferry served the Halhjem to Sandvikvåg route until 2018, whereafter it operated the same route chartered to another operator.

Following a period from 2021 when as Greenferry I it came under German ownership, it reverted back to Fanafjord for Fjord Line in 2022, under whose ownership the vessel was listed until this latest chapter in its career.