Sally Cruise was a wholly owned subsidiary of

Rederi Ab Sally Rederi Ab Sally was a Finnish shipping company founded in 1937 by Algot Johansson. Originally a tanker operator, Sally became a dominant member of the Viking Line shipping consortium in the 1970s. The company met bad times in the 1980s and was b ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

that operated

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours know ...

s on the

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between the years 1986 and 1992. It was merged into

Silja Line Silja Line is a Swedish-Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company Tallink, AS Tallink Grupp, for car, cargo and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy—today Tallink Silja osakeyhtiö, O ...

1992.

Company history

had been, until the early 1980s, the dominant partner in the

Viking Line Viking Line Abp is a Finnish shipping company that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between Finland, the Åland Islands, Sweden and Estonia. Viking Line shares are quoted on the Helsinki Stock Exchange. Viking Line is operated ...

consortium. However, due to investing in unprofitable operations outside the Baltic Sea they started losing their foothold in Viking during the mid-80s when the other partners (

SF Line SF may refer to: Locations * San Francisco, California, United States * Sidi Fredj, Algeria * South Florida, an urban region in the United States * Suomi Finland, former vehicular country code for Finland In arts and entertainment Genre ...

and Rederi AB Slite) took delivery of new tonnage that supplanted Sally's newest ships. In 1986 when Sally's MS ''Viking Saga'' was replaced by the new MS ''Olympia'', the decision was made not to sell the ''Viking Saga'' but use her to start a new company, Sally Cruise, to operate short cruises out of

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

, Finland. At this time one-day cruises to nowhere were still a novel idea, the first ones had been made only the previous year by GTS ''Finnjet''. After a refit the ''Viking Saga'' re-emerged as MS ''Sally Albatross'', painted in an attractive white livery with dark and light blue bands running along her hull. Despite the ''Sally Albatross'' success her parent company's downward spiral continued, and in 1987 the company was sold to their main rivals Effoa and Johnson Line (owners of Silja Line). The change of ownership meant additional investments made in Sally Cruise, and the ''Sally Albatross'' was rebuilt in 1988. However, disaster struck in 1990 when the ''Sally Albatross'' was burnt out while in drydock at Finnboda,

Nacka Nacka () is the municipal seat of Nacka Municipality and part of Stockholm urban area The Stockholm urban area ( sv, Stockholms tätort) is the largest and most populous of the statistical localities or urban areas in Sweden. It has no adminis ...

, Sweden. Sally Cruises quickly chartered MS ''Delfin Clipper'' from the short-lived Delfin Cruises and renamed her MS ''Sally Clipper'' to replace the burnt-out ''Sally Albatross''. By the end of the year 1990 the salvageable parts of the burnt-out ''Sally Albatross'' were being used to build a new ship, codenamed ''Sally Eurocruiser''. Before she was completed in 1992 Sally also chartered ''Sally Clipper''{{'s sister ship MS ''Delfin Caravelle'' under the name ''Sally Caravelle'' in 1991. In March 1992 the new MS ''Sally Albatross'' debuted for Sally Cruise. However, in order to cut costs her owners EffJohn (a merger between Rederi Ab Sally, Effoa and Johnson Line created in 1990) decided to terminate Sally Cruise as an independent company in September 1992, and the company was merged in Silja Line.

Fleet

* MS ''Sally Albatross'' (1986–1990, 1992) * MS ''Sally Clipper'' (1990) * MS ''Sally Caravelle'' (1991)

External links

Sally Cruise at Fakta om Fartyg
(in Swedish) Defunct transport companies of Finland Defunct shipping companies Transport companies established in 1986 Transport companies disestablished in 1992 Defunct cruise lines 1992 disestablishments in Finland Finnish companies established in 1986