MS ''A Nepita'' is a fast ropax

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

for

Corsica Linea Corsica ( , Upper , Southern ; it, Corsica; ; french: Corse ; lij, Còrsega; sc, Còssiga) is an island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of the 18 regions of France. It is the fourth-largest island in the Mediterranean and lies southeast of ...

. The ferry was refurbished in

Gdańsk Gdańsk ( , also ; ; csb, Gduńsk;Stefan Ramułt, ''Słownik języka pomorskiego, czyli kaszubskiego'', Kraków 1893, Gdańsk 2003, ISBN 83-87408-64-6. , Johann Georg Theodor Grässe, ''Orbis latinus oder Verzeichniss der lateinischen Benen ...

, Poland for her new service and was returned to her original design before her SeaFrance career and looks identical to her sisters Stena Superfast VII & VIII. Before November 2014 she operated between

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

and

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. Th ...

for DFDS Seaways France and between 2008 and 2012 for SeaFrance.

Concept and construction

''A Nepita'' was the last ship in a series of four identical

ice class Ice class refers to a notation assigned by a classification society or a national authority to denote the additional level of strengthening as well as other arrangements that enable a ship to navigate through sea ice. Some ice classes also have r ...

ed fast ferries built by HDW for Superfast Ferries' new Baltic Sea services. She was launched on 18 November 2000, on the same date as her sisters ''Superfast VII'' and ''Superfast IX'' ''Stena Superfast X'' was delivered to her owners on 26 February 2002 and christened on the same date by Patricia Lederer, wife of the HDW project director for the Superfast ships.

Service history

''Superfast X'' entered service for Superfast Ferries on 27 February 2002 on the

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– Rostock route. She remained on that route until 19 April 2002, when she was laid up in Kiel at HDW. On 17 May 2002, she re-entered service, on the Rosyth–Zeebrugge route. In January and February 2004, ''Superfast X'' was rebuilt at Fosen Mekaniske Verksted,

Fosen Fosen is a traditional district in Trøndelag, consisting of the municipalities Osen, Roan Åfjord, Ørland, Indre Fosen, Orkland, Heim, Hitra and Frøya. The district is dominated by forested valleys, lakes, coastal cliffs but also shallow a ...

, Norway with additional passenger berths. On 7 August 2006, Superfast Ferries announced it had sold ''Superfast X'' to Veolia Transport for

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

112 million. The ship was delivered to her new owners on 12 February 2007 and renamed ''Jean Nicoli''. In March 2007, ''Jean Nicoli'' made crossings from Le Havre to Marseille, carrying cars on board. During April the same year, she was chartered to

COTUNAV The Compagnie Tunisienne de Navigation (CTN or COTUNAV) is a Tunisian shipping line, providing regular passenger ferry connections between Tunisia and the ports of Marseille and Genoa, as well as freight transport to Barcelona and Livorno. Foun ...

for traffic from Italy and France to Tunisia. At the end of April she was laid up, initially at

La Seyne La Seyne-sur-Mer (; "La Seyne on Sea"; oc, La Sanha), or simply La Seyne, is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. In 2018, it had a population of 62,888. La Seyne-sur-Mer, which is pa ...

, later at Marseille. From 8 September until 2 October 2007 she was chartered to

ANEK Lines ANEK Lines (Ανώνυμη Ναυτιλιακή Εταιρεία Κρήτης, ''Anonymi Naftiliaki Eteria Kritis'', Anonymous Shipping Company of Crete) is one of the largest passenger shipping companies in Greece. It was founded in 1967 by nu ...

for service on its

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–

Corfu Corfu (, ) or Kerkyra ( el, Κέρκυρα, Kérkyra, , ; ; la, Corcyra.) is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea, of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the margin of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The isl ...

– Igoumenitsa–

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

route. On 27 December 2007, the ship was sold to SeaFrance. In the beginning of April 2008, ''Jean Nicoli'' was delivered to SeaFrance and renamed ''SeaFrance Molière''. On 3 April 2008, she left Marseille for

Arno Dunkerque The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. Source and route The river originates on Monte Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennine Mountains, Apennines, and i ...

for rebuilding into a short distance ferry. After transfer to the leasing company Sarl Poquelin Bail, she entered service with SeaFrance in freight only operation on 19 August 2008 and began passenger service on 1 September 2008. Due to the commercial court ordering that Seafrance be liquidated, from 16 November 2011 the ship was laid up, initially at

Dunkerque Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Tilbury in England. In October 2012, DFDS chartered the ship to be used on its Dover–Dunkerque crossing. During a short refit by Arno at Dunkerque she was renamed ''Dieppe Seaways'' and returned to the French registry. She re-entered service on 7 November though, following a change of plan, on the Dover-Calais route. On 1 May 2014, ''Dieppe Seaways'' suffered a fire from an overheated boiler in the engine room as she approached Dover from Calais. All 316 passengers disembarked safely on arrival. However, in responding to the fire, seven crew members and three firefighters were injured with

flash burns Flash burn is any burn injury caused by intense flashes of light, high voltage electric current, or strong thermal radiation. These may originate from, for example, a sufficiently large Boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion, BLEVE, a thermobari ...

At the end of her charter to DFDS Seaways in November 2014,

Stena Line Stena Line is a Swedish shipping line company and one of the largest ferry operators in the world. It services Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Latvia, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and Sweden. Stena Line is a major unit of Ste ...

took possession of the vessel returning her to her original name, albeit with a Stena prefix, and sending her for an extensive refit to return the cargo arrangements to their original configuration and refurbish the interiors similar to sisterships ''Stena Superfast VII'' and ''Stena Superfast VIII'' operating on the

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(

Loch Ryan Loch Ryan ( gd, Loch Rìoghaine, ) is a Scottish sea loch that acts as an important natural harbour for shipping, providing calm waters for ferries operating between Scotland and Northern Ireland. The town of Stranraer is the largest settleme ...

) to Belfast route. After refit the ship replaced ''MS Stena Nordica'' (which itself is being chartered to DFDS Seaways to take up the timetable ''Stena Superfast X'' previous operated) on the Holyhead–Dublin Port route on 9 March 2015. ''Stena Superfast X'' substantially increased the freight and passenger capacity on the route and coincided with the withdrawal of the

Stena HSS High-speed Sea Service or Stena HSS was a class of high-speed craft developed by and originally operated by Stena Line on European international ferry routes. The HSS 1500 had an in-service speed of 40 knots (75 km/h). Several patent ...

service to Dún Laoghaire. In January 2020 Stena line announced that Stena Superfast X chartered to Corsica Linea and will be renamed A Nepita to her new owners which will be delivered in March 2020. It will be serviced for new ownership in Piraeus, Greece, and will have maintenance for new service in Greece (+100 cabins and maybe scrubbers).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:A. Nepita Ships built in Kiel Ferries of France 2001 ships 10 Ships of the Stena Line