MYTILENE (ΜΥΤΙΛΗΝΗ)

-NEL Lines (1990-2022)

Built in 1973, scrapped in 2022 (age 49). Was registered in Chios. 

 

The cruiseferry MYTILENE is perhaps the most historic ship NEL Lines have ever had, and is surely among the greatest ships in the history of the Greek coastal service. She was built in Japan in 1973, as the VEGA for the Japanese company Higashi Nihon Ferry, and she operated on the Sendai-Tomokomai line. She was bought by NEL Lines in 1990 and was renamed MYTILENE. She underwent an extensive conversion in Perama and was deployed in 1992 on the Piraeus-Chios-Mytilene-Limnos-Thessaloniki line on the Northeast Aegean Sea, where she went on to encounter massive success, and quickly became a passenger favourite. She was the flagship of NEL Lines from 1992 until the arrival of the THEOFILOS in 1995. After 20 years serving the main service of NEL Lines, she was deployed on the Piraeus-Ikaria-Samos-Chios-Mytilene-Limnos-Kavala line in 2012. Later in that year she was inserted on the Piraeus-Syros-Mykonos-Ikaria-Fournoi-Samos line. She remained in service despite NEL Lines experiencing severe financial difficulties in the 2010s, and continued to travel efficiently until suffering from a major engine failure in Samos in 2015. The incident saw her laid-up in the island, while also being detained by her crew, as her company could not afford towing her back to Piraeus and repair her. She stayed in Samos for a year, until she was towed to Elefsina Bay in 2016, in order to continue her lay-up. After remaining there for six years, she was sold for scrap to Turkey in 2022, thus ending a legendary 32-year-long career on the Northeast Aegean Sea.

 

PHOTOS (2013, 2014):