Moby Group (Moby Lines, Tirrenia, Toremar)

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 15 Jun 2022 17:49

Moby Tommy's return was delayed to the evening of 21 June, the reason for the delay seems to be due to certificates withdrawn by RINA.

: Moby Tommy

Post by **hhvferry** » 17 Jun 2022 11:48

ManiaNave wrote: ↑15 Jun 2022 17:49 Moby Tommy's return was delayed to the evening of 21 June, the reason for the delay seems to be due to certificates withdrawn by RINA.

I don't quite understand why the Moby Dada was pulled from her role on the Genoa-Porto Torres route a few days ago? She sailed to Bastia and has then sat there until today when she picked up sailings after the final departure of the Moby Zaza.

Had they kept her on the Porto Torres route it would have minimised the cancellations due to the non-appearance by the Tommy to only Thursday to Monday rather than essentially a full week of them.

Zaza and Dada are currently both sailing from Bastia to Genoa, but only the Dada, I think, has passengers.

Anyway, this means that, for now at least, the Moby Zaza's time with Moby Lines is over and she can embark on her much-rumoured charter to Balearia. I hope they have been told that her maximum speed is about 15 knots!

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 17 Jun 2022 13:11

Moby Lines è obbligata a mandare la Moby Dada sulla Genova-Bastia perché deve sostituire zaza visto che il 20 sarà consegnato a Balearia, Moby Zaza raggiungerà i 17 nodi, infatti in questi giorni li ha raggiunti

Post by **hhvferry** » 17 Jun 2022 13:15

Moby Tommy, incidentally, has finally left Piombino where she has been I think for about eight months laid up.

She stretched her legs yesterday evening on a non-revenue earning cruise up the coast to Livorno, from where she should continue up to Genoa ahead of re-entering service on Monday. It doesn't look like they are going to dry dock her at this stage.

Post by **hhvferry** » 17 Jun 2022 13:17

ManiaNave wrote: ↑17 Jun 2022 13:11 Moby Lines is obliged to send the Moby Dada on the Genoa-Bastia because it has to replace zaza since the 20 will be delivered to Balearia, Moby Zaza will reach 17 knots, in fact in these days it has reached them

Yes, I understand that; but the Dada went to Bastia a few days ago but has only I think entered service today.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 18 Jun 2022 16:36

The “Bastia” ferry, which was making the Portoferraio-Ponza route in honor of San Silverio, is returning to Piombino due to an engine problem. The breakdown occurred around 10.

: Moby Bastia

Post by **hhvferry** » 21 Jun 2022 18:24

hhvferry wrote: ↑07 Apr 2022 08:16
The old freighter Giuseppe Sa. (originally Fred. Olsen's Bohemund) has been sold for further service:
La nave Giuseppe Sa di Moby venduta al triplo della base d’asta

The freighter Giuseppe Sa., which has lain broken down in Piombino for a long time and was sold a few months ago, has finally begun her voyage to her new owners. The price paid for her suggests she is planned for further service and she is being towed to Tripoli by the Christos XXVII.

She was originally the Bohemund of Fred. Olsen's North Sea freight services and, like her two sisters, eventually ended up in Moby service.

: Giuseppe Sa. at Piombino

Post by **hhvferry** » 22 Jun 2022 11:38

ManiaNave wrote: ↑15 Jun 2022 17:49 Moby Tommy's return was delayed to the evening of 21 June, the reason for the delay seems to be due to certificates withdrawn by RINA.

To the surprise of nobody this didn't happen and the Moby Tommy is still in dry dock in Genoa.

As an extraordinary measure the Moby Aki was pulled from her Genoa-Olbia crossing last night to cover for the Tommy on the Porto Torres route. I wonder if this is the first time any of the 'cubes' has been to Porto Torres. Passengers for the Aki both last night and on her scheduled Olbia-Genoa run tonight have been transferred to the parallel, but rather slower/later to arrive, sailing of the Moby Drea on the same route.

The Tommy is now due to re-enter service tomorrow instead.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 22 Jun 2022 12:23

if I'm not mistaken it is Aki's first time in Porto Torres, I hope that at least tomorrow Tommy will take up service as they changed every time close to his return

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 25 Jun 2022 20:14

This morning the Moby Vincent who was carrying out the Livorno-Bastia, suffered an engine failure that forced the ship to cancel the route, consequently the Moby Wonder had to make the Olbia-Piombino-Bastia to be able to load the passengers of Moby Vincent, on the other hand, the passengers who had to make the Bastia-Livorno were transferred to Moby Dada.

: Moby Vincent

Post by **hhvferry** » 29 Jun 2022 20:57

The latest Moby ship to fail is the Moby Dada. She arrived something like five hours late in Genoa from Bastia yesterday evening and skipped her overnight sailing back again. To compensate the Moby Aki gave up her day's layover in Genoa today to make a return trip to Bastia and back, something this class used to do a lot before it became too expensive to run them at such speed to make the schedule work.

The chronic mechanical issues affecting the Moby Group's ships are not, presumably, coincidental to a company which has been very strapped for cash until very recently.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 30 Jun 2022 16:17

I wonder how such a ship still manages to be in service

Post by **hhvferry** » 05 Jul 2022 00:59

The Moby Vincent broke down again in Livorno today.

The Sharden, extraordinarily, was redirected to Bastia en-route on her Livorno-Olbia morning sailing with the Vincent's traffic as well as her own. She'll have been burning some serious fuel at near-on 25 knots to get back on schedule later. The Sharden will be repeating this for at least the next couple of days as well.

This is almost certainly the first time the Sharden or her sister (or indeed three half-sisters) has been to Bastia I think and the first time a Tirrenia-branded vessel will have been seen in port for decades since they ended their own direct sailings.

I think, possibly, she could also be the longest ferry to berth at Bastia at 214m.

At the same time the Moby Vincent was stuck in Livorno her sister, and rival, the Sardinia Vera is broken down in Bastia at the opposite end of the same route (Corsica Ferries covered this with a hastily-arranged round trip of the Mega Smeralda (ex-Color Festival) which has made her evening Bastia-Toulon sailing seriously late).

The series of delays and breakdowns continues to mount and is fast becoming the story of the summer for Italian ferry operators.

: Sharden routed to Bastia 040722

Post by **hhvferry** » 07 Jul 2022 00:41

Excellent image here of the Sharden squeezing into Bastia.

There is a longstanding notional length restriction in the port of 180m (which is why Bastia-max ships such as the Piana, Pascal Paoli and Danielle Casanova etc always appear to be stubby with short forecastles and why the 212m long Mega Express Three is the one Corsica Ferries ship rarely seen in port). There are some exemptions to this as two of the berths can take longer ships but it's not generally permitted for regular service (the Jean Nicoli and Vizzavona are now granted permanent exemptions to use the longer berth 7). So the arrival of the Sharden over the past few days covering for the failed Moby Vincent has been particularly noteworthy - at 214m she is huge by Bastia standards.

Post by **hhvferry** » 07 Jul 2022 11:01

The Sharden has made herself popular with the locals in Bastia - look carefully and you can see this cloud of dirty funnel emissions is from her.

Post by **hhvferry** » 12 Jul 2022 18:02

One of those Sharden diversions to Bastia captured on the port webcam. She is probably the largest ferry to have called there.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 17 Jul 2022 15:03

This morning the Moby Kiss suffered a breakdown and therefore all the races were canceled. The ship had suffered a breakdown on 14 July

: Moby Kiss

Post by **hhvferry** » 23 Jul 2022 17:01

Nice image of the Giraglia at Bonifacio, one of the world's most picturesque ferry ports, ahead of another sailing to Santa Teresa.

Looking at this image at some point in recent years they have converted the ship's old upper vehicle deck (the area directly forward of the twin large vents above the stern door) more formally into an additional passenger space with deck benches etc.

: Giraglia at Bonifacio

Photo: sunrisesandsunsets24

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 27 Jul 2022 08:49

Moby and Tirrenia have approved the agreed plan to save the company: the agreement consists in the sale of Moby Zaza, Moby Corse, Bithia, Janas, Athara

: Moby and Tirrenia Agreement

ryanh · Post by **ryanh** » 27 Jul 2022 10:48

Interesting, I wonder where the ships they get rid of will end up? Moby Corse & Zaza are both quite elderly, but they appear to be in good shape? I don’t know anything about the other 3 vessels.

Post by **hhvferry** » 27 Jul 2022 12:24

ryanh wrote: ↑27 Jul 2022 10:48 Interesting, I wonder where the ships they get rid of will end up? Moby Corse & Zaza are both quite elderly, but they appear to be in good shape? I don’t know anything about the other 3 vessels.

Yes the older pair are in pretty good cosmetic shape for their age. They both got Mobyfied when acquired, to differing degrees, and still look fine in most areas - although mechanically who knows what several years of Moby's reduced maintenance budgets have done to them, the Zaza in particular is not known for her speed any more.

However those two have both effectively already left the fleet with the Corse chartered this year and last to SNAV and the Zaza now with Balearia for at least this summer.

The other trio are more interesting, in terms of their futures if not as ships. They are three of the five modern, fast ro-paxes built for Tirrenia in 2001-2005 (well they were modern back then), derivations of Minoan Lines' four-strong Italian-built 'Palaces'. These three though were built with just one freight deck and an upper car deck compared to the twin freight decks of the other pair (Nuraghes and Sharden) and the Palaces. So they are inherently less useful for some routes.

At the moment the Athara and Bithia are used on the Civitavecchia-Olbia (& occasionally Olbia-Piombino) routes whilst the Janas is paired with the Moby Tommy on the Genoa-Porto Torres route.

Forecasting any Italian ferry company's future fleet utilisation is a mug's game but at face value when the new Moby Fantasy and Moby Legacy are delivered they will take over the Livorno-Olbia route allowing the larger half-sisters (Nuraghes and Sharden) to go back to the Genoa-Porto Torres route they used to operate. So at least two of them would be spare for disposal that way.

However all of this comes with a huge asterisk as MSC/GNV's involvement in Moby means (a) it's not certain to what degree the existing or future fleets will be integrated and (b) Moby, now with MSC's backing, may not be as hard up as their financial plan suggests and all these ships may not need to be sold: the Bithia, Janas and Athara would be very useful as upgrades given the wider Moby and GNV fleets include a host of 1970s and 1980s-built overnight ships with less capacity than they offer.

This is the Athara in Superman rig at Genoa last September. Despite the slight freight limitations they are still very substantial ships, similar in overall dimensions to a standard e-Flexer but with 1,000+ cabin berths.

: Athara at Genoa 120921

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 06 Aug 2022 21:14

The athara ferry used today on the Piombino Olbia is currently in blackout, consequently it is without electricity so no air conditioning and no power to the engines, the blackout occurred during docking maneuvers in Olbia, the ship is now waiting for the tugs.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 07 Aug 2022 07:11

after 2 hours and 15 minutes of blackout, the ship took power again and the passengers got off

Post by **hhvferry** » 08 Aug 2022 10:03

The Moby Vincent has been out of action yet again this weekend with the Moby Kiss summoned from Elba to cover for her on the Livorno-Bastia route.

The Vincent is now scheduled to return to service on Saturday with the Kiss heading immediately back into service at Elba - Moby presumably don't want to face another summer Saturday on the Piombino-Portoferraio (Elba) service without one of the route's largest ships.

ManiaNave · Post by **ManiaNave** » 11 Aug 2022 07:32

Last night the Moby Tommy did not leave Genoa towards Porto Torres due to an engine and thruster failure. Its passengers were sent to: Nuraghes, Moby Aki, Moby drea, Gnv Allegra, Excelsior

: Moby Tommy