
Technical Specifications
Overview
Speedlink Vanguard was a 3,514 GRT train ferry which was built in 1973 as Stena Shipper. She was charted to a New Zealand operator on completion and renamed Union Wellington and saw further service as Alpha Express and Stena Shipper before entering service with Sealink as Speedlink Vanguard. The ship was involved in a collision with European Gateway in 1982, which sank the latter ship with the loss of six lives. She saw further service under the names Caribe Express, Stena Shipper, Kirk Shipper, Normandie Shipper Bonavista, Boa Vista and Birlik 1 before being scrapped in 2013. The ship sailed under the flags of the Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Greece, New Zealand, Panama, Sweden, Turkey and West Germany at various points in her career.
Compliance
Harbour master advised vessel apparently damaged dock upon departure. No report from the vessel.
On January 08, 2000 the vessel "BONAVISTA" ran aground while attempting to come alongside the wharf at Argentia, Nfld. The vessel was later refloated and secured to the dock. There was no pollution and no apparent damage. Divers to investigate.
Recorded marine occurrences naming this vessel.
Composite Risk
Multiple adverse factors, or a hard ship-specific signal, lift this hull above the fleet norm.
A coverage-weighted blend of the single component we could read for this hull; the weights renormalise over only the components present, so a thin read is never inflated and a hull is never credited a “safe 0” for a signal it has no row for. This headline is flagged low-confidence (a thin or structural-only read) and should not be treated as a verdict. Higher means riskier. Derived in-house from government-open port-State-control, flag, sanctions and our own vessel data; weight it by the coverage above.
Commercial
Price it in the Route Planner between any two commercial ports: ballast and laden legs, two fuels at live bunker prices, port and canal costs, the weather on the way, and the TCE set against the market.

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