A much-loved ferry that once crossed the Bass Strait between Melbourne and Tasmania and which was then used in the Aegean completed its final voyage to Turkey where it is to be scrapped for its metal.
The Abel Tasman was beached at Aliaga in Turkey on Monday after she had been laid up in the waters near Athens since 2015 following the financial collapse of NEL Lines, the company which owned the vessel, renamed Theofilos, at the time.
The Abel Tasman ferried passengers between Devonport and Melbourne on six overnight crossings a week from to 1985 to 1993, when it was replaced by the much larger The Spirit of Tasmania. In its years of service it became a much-loved institution with many Tasmanians recalling their fondness of the vessel.
“It was such a huge leap forward from its predecessor,” said Mitchell Bruce, creator of the Ferries in Tasmania website. The Abel Tasman had replaced the smaller Empress of Australia which made the crossing three times a fortnight, Mr Bruce told the ABC.
He added that he heard from contacts in Greece that there was some hope the ship would be bought and refurbished but that the cost would have proved too high.
Before it was used on the Tasmanian route, the vessel was called the Nils-Holgersson and had operated between Sweden and the ports of northern Europe.
In 1994, the Abel Tasman, which had been bought by the Greek company Ventouris Ferris was renamed MS Thephilos and it plied the waters of the Aegean.
In 1995, the ship ran into trouble and ploughed full speed into Chios harbour causing considerable damage and crushing a passenger’s car. In 2008 the ship struck a reef on the route between Chios and and Piraeus. It continued to be used commercially until it was decommissioned in 2015. Over the last year the vessel was laid up at the Spanopoulos shipyard.