Knowledge Bank

SALLYFÄRJOR/ VIKINGLINE 1966-1988

“the main source of knowledge”

Per-Olof Björke joined the ferry-/cruisebusiness when the ”business was born” in early sixties.

PeO has been part of the functional and operative planning of 11 New Buildings as well as a System Manager 1966 – 1988, VIKING 1,3,4,5, VIKING SALLY build in Papenburg, Germany and VIKING SAGA/ VIKING SONG in WÄRTSILÄ Turku and DELFIN CARAVELLE OCH DELFIN CLIPPER in RAUMA YARDS.

After 20 years within Viking Line and SALLY FÄRJOR he started the family company in shipping consulting ICM -Integrated Cruise Management AB Ltd

1959 -1968, this was before the PC and computers were available. Last trip August 12, 1970 Nådendal-Mariehamn. Passenger changed to the new Viking 1.

Viking 2 started in a route Nådedal – Kapellskär, 4 pass cabins only, later change to Mariehamn-Kapellskär

The series of ”Papenburgare” with Viking 1,3,4,5 was very sucessfull and practical ferries at that time. Here the new total building up of onboard systems started to slowly be built, most with manual routines and only a cash register with one amount. We started with manual cartotec for each article in the main stores

Sylvia Kekkonen, the wife to President Kekkonen, gave name to the ship Viking 5 on July 9, 1974. Viking 6 was bought from Alaska Marine Highway as second ship were the first 2 ferries within Viking Line started traffic Helsingfors – Stockholm. A whole new customer base were developed.

TEC or Tokyo Electric finds out that there was three Jumbo Ferries planned for the Baltic Sea traffic. PeO got an invitation to be part of the planning team for building 1000 new advanced cash registers for the Nordic market. PeO was sitting in one weeks with 10 factory engineers to specify the cash registers for the nineties- The factory made the 200 units in 2 months. The delivery was sent to Wärtsilä Turku with a Jumbojet and arrived a week before the maiden voyage for Viking Saga.

Viking Sally was the latest of Jumbo ferries in the summer of 1980 to be put in traffic between Stockholm – Mariehamn – Åbo. We had now a very advanced POS (Point Of Sales) system in Europe. All the ferries in Sally was built with the first total system in Europe using EAN codes that made it possible to scan every article without misstakes and could therefor monitor all sales and stock by unit in btls, cl in bars etc.

Viking Saga, Viking Song and Viking Sally were delivered within 3 months in 1980. It is almos unbelievable to understand how so small organization could plan, calculate, make complete new routines and systems for three ”Jumbo ferries” at this time. The ships were put in traffic in 27 June, 5 July and 30 August 1980.

Algot Johansson always said the you work better an more efficient under pressure.

Thanks to an understanding and supportive family we succeed the first rond. The second rond was more tuff later.

Sally company was expanding to new markets. The first outside the Baltic Sea was to estabLish traffic in UK, between Ramsgate and Dunkirk in France. The whole idea was to use the knowledge from the Baltic Sea operations to new markets. The first ship was Viking 5 under the new name, The Viking and the company name, Sally The Viking Line. The second ship taken to the new market was Viking 6. All systems was taken from our traffic in the Baltic.

Since Sally was sure we had so much knowledge so of course Caribean market was very interesting. Sally bought the exsisting Swedish Owned company Commodore Cruise who had one ship, m/s Boheme. At that time the new Norwegian cruise operations was very successful and also english american Carnival Cruises was very successful focusing on the young party market.

Sally had one idea to take an old Cruiseship that has been for many years laid up in Pireus, Greese and refurbish her to an exclusive cruise ship. Many problems on the wasy, from Pireus-Hamburg and the problems with American Coustgard  made i impossible in the long run to get it profitable. The problem in Carrieban, the UK opertation and three new Jumbo ferries mad it impossible to save Sally companies to continue. All shares was sold to FÅA (Silja) in 1988

After the bankruptcy of Sally, the bank saved one crew and Viking Saga under the name ”OUR SHIP”  under the very skillful and marketing oriented MD, Tomas Lepistö, originally coming from Philip Morris as MD for Europe. Thomas has learn me most of the business I have been involved in since then with his ”bible”expressions: TARGET – ACTIONPLAN – BUDGETS. We learned of course may things from  the Commodore Cruise Line and other in Caribbean operations

During a month when nobody could believe we could create a complete new cruise trend, 24 hour cruises between Helsinki-Tallin. The success was total, the sales much more than calculated and the fuel cost much lower than budgeted. Unfortunately Sally Albatross got a fire in Finnboda Werft and the traffic was was fast taken over by other companies.

The original idea for the new route was initiated by the youngest steward in Sally tanker fleet, 18 year old Anders Lindholm but Finnish Seamen Union stopped him by asking for millions in salary guarantee. Later Anders talked to Thomas Lepistö in Sallyfärjor and the the project ”Our Ship” started.