The Peder Paars was completed in 1985 for Danish Railways' (DSB) long-standing route between Kalundborg and Århus. The ship, alongside her sister, Niels Klim, were purpose-built for this run, and as with the previous Great Belt trio of train ferries constructed in the early 1980s, deployed high-end Danish designers to furnish and decorate the public spaces, the most notable of which was the impressive two-deck high central 'ferry square'. Unfortunately, experience soon demonstrated that the two ships were somewhat unsuited to their role, a more practical design having been sacrificed by political interference that dictated the ships were large but relatively slow (a fear of unfair state competition against private rival Mols Linien being the cause of the latter). After just five years service, both ships were sold to Stena Line, with the Swedish company seemingly having no fixed future plans in place for their deployment.
Whilst the Niels Klim (renamed initially Stena Nautica) embarked on a drawn-out series of charters outside the group before settling down on Stena's own Varberg - Grenå run in 1999, the Peder Paars was destined for the English Channel and operations with new subsidiary Sealink Stena Line as the Stena Invicta on the Dover-Calais run. A huge investment was made in refitting the ship for Sealink service prior to a Dover debut in July 1991. Clearly, a Danish domestic ferry was always going to require significant alterations before being suitable for the Dover-Calais booze cruise market, but nonetheless, the impact of Stena's work on the relaxed, upscale and businesslike (some would say clinical in places) Peder Paars was dramatic. Although most of the critical attention would be focussed on the partial decking-over of the ferry square and the plating in of the atrium's rooflights, this was by no means the limit of the changes and the essence of the Peder Paars was lost in the refit, the Stena Invicta being a ship of a completely different character, reflecting the style of her new owners every bit as much as she had done in her previous life.
Alas, one of the inherent problems from the Peder Paars days continued to haunt the 'Invicta', namely her lack of speed. Although this was less of a selling point for Sealink compared to rivals P&O, where crossing times were advertised as being 15 minutes faster than the 90 Sealink allowed, the new ship still managed to lag behind her operating partners on the route and this was compounded by her limitations as a freight ship. By the early 1990s, all other mainstream Dover-Calais vessels had the ability to load freight on two levels, but the 'Invicta's original design had only allowed for freight on the lower deck, with nothing larger than vans on the upper car deck. To compensate for this limitation, the Stena Invicta initially ran in tandem with fellow newcomer Stena Challenger. In retrospect, it seemed that Stena had made an unwise purchase of the two Danish ships and had put the spare ship on a route which required an additional vessel without clearly ensuring the ship was entirely suitable. Nonetheless, company and vessel persevered and passengers (unbiased by the knowledge of what had been removed to install them) were won over to the ship's remodelled interiors, despite the behind-the-scenes operational problems.
The merger of Stena with P&O in 1998 saw the ship pass to the new P&O Stena Line company, but she was immediately withdrawn. Thereafter, the 'Invicta' embarked on an extended period of charter work interspersed with lay-up. Charters followed to Silja (Summer 1998 for Vaasa-Umeå), Stena Line (Winter '99/2000 on the Irish Sea) and finally Color Line (as Color Viking between Strömstad and Sandefjord from Spring 2000). Color Line, having succesfully 'road-tested' the ship were clearly happy enough with her capabilities and purchased her outright in 2001, continuing to employ her, after a futher substantial refurbishment, on their busy Sweden-Norway link. |
