The Regent Sky: A $200 Million Dream That Never Left the Yard

We continue our historical articles with a forgotten tail of what was intended to be a Baltic ferry and was later meant to become a cruise ship. She ended as scrap. In between lay three decades of misfortune, bankruptcy, and rust.

In 1979 European ferry operator Stena Line ordered four 39,000-gross-ton ferries for the Gothenburg, Sweden – Kiel, Germany overnight route. All four were to be built at the Polish yards of Stocznia Gdansk. As the Stena Baltika, she was a rather unremarkable by design as the purpose of the vessel is as any ferry would be; a workhorse intended for a reliable short-crossings, carrying passengers from point a to b and nothing more adventurous than that. What makes her story worth telling is not what she was, but what was done to her, and what was never finished.

Two of her sisters, the Stena Germanica and Stena Scandinavica, entered service in 1987 and 1988. The Stena Baltika was not so fortunate. Laid down in 1985, she fell victim to shipyard difficulties that slowed her construction to a halt. By 1988, Stena had terminated the contract and abandoned the partially completed hull to the yard.

In 1989 she was purchased by the Greek owners of Regency Cruises who intended her to be the company’s first purpose-built ship. The plan was nothing short of audacious. They would put her trough a $200 million conversion that would stretch her hull by 174 feet, raise her gross tonnage to 55,000 gt, and increase her passenger capacity to 1,600-passenger. The new ship was advertised with the name Regent Sky. She was towed to Greece in October 1990 where the work immediately commenced.

Completion was forecast for 1997–98. It never came. In 1995, with the ship approximately 60 per cent complete and relocated to the Avlis Shipyards of Chalkis, Greece, Regency Cruises collapsed into bankruptcy. Work stopped and the hull sat.

The National Bank of Greece seized the vessel as part of the bankruptcy process in 1999. The Regent Sky drifted between lay-up berths as auction after auction failed. At one point artists’ renderings appeared showing her reborn as the Zoe in a failed attempt to resurrect the vessel. The talks never progressed that far though as the name Regent Sky was ever-present on her bow up until the final end.

In July 2011 she was finally sold for scrap. A year later, under tow and stripped of her only remaining valuable asset, her diesel engines, she arrived at the breakers in Aliaga, Turkey. Twenty-seven years of existence. Considerable sums expended. Not a single penny earned in return.