Vronskiy

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The Vronskiy was a ferry ship of the Spanish Acciona Trasmediterranea, which was commissioned in 1978 as Prinses Beatrix for the Dutch Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland. Since 2013, it has been used mainly on the route from Almería to Oran. In January 2021, the ship, which has been retired since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, went to Aliağa in Turkey for demolition.

History
The Prinses Beatrix was built under the number 959 in the Verolme Scheepswerf Heusden in Heusden and was launched on 14 January 1978. After being taken over by Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland on 24 June 1978, the ship managed by Sealink took over on 29 June 1978. June 1978 the ferry service on the route from Hoek van Holland to Harwich.

On 1 October 1985, the Prinses Beatrix was sold to the French shipping company Brittany Ferries and continued to be used by Stoomvaart Maatschappij Zeeland until May 1986, before being renamed Duc de Normandie in May 1986 and modernised in Rotterdam. On June 5, 1986, the ship began service for Brittany Ferries on the route from Caen to Portsmouth.

On 10 July 2002, the Duc de Normandie switched to the Roscoff to Plymouth route before being withdrawn from service and launched at Caen on 30 September 2004. In November 2004, the ship was transferred to Gdańsk and relayed there.

In March 2005, Duc de Normandie became the property of the Belgian Transeuropa Ferries, which renamed it Wisteria and chartered it to the Moroccan shipping company Ferrimaroc. After conversion work in Ostend, the ship was put into service on 30 March 2005 on the route from Almería to Nador.

Following the expiration of the charter in October 2005, Wisteria started service for Transeuropa Ferries between Ostend and Ramsgate in November 2005. However, the ship was already relaunched in January 2006 and chartered to the Spanish Acciona Trasmediterranea in February. On 9 March 2006, the Wisteria started service between Barcelona, Palma, Ibiza and Mahón. In the following years, the ship changed its service route several times, but most often called at the port of Almeria. On 28 July 2007, it was severely damaged in a collision with the ferry dock in Almeria.

Following the insolvency of Transeuropa Ferries, in April 2013 Wisteria became owned by Nizhniy Shipping Ltd. based in Slovenia, which it further chartered to Acciona under the new name Vronskiy. The ship has since been used on the route from Almería to Oran. Most recently it ran since February 2020 under charter for FRS Iberia on the route between Motril and Melilla. However, due to the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, this service was short-lived: In March 2020, the Vronskiy was retired and launched in Motril. After the expiration of the charter contract with FRS Iberia, she went back to her owners in November 2020, but did not get back on track.