M/S Drotten

My page about Drotten.

About Drotten

Drotten is easily my favourite ferry. Just look at her bridge!! The windows go so far around the sides and the front looks so good. I know people like the new Gotland more but I would still choose Drotten. Especially with those four Wärtsilä engines. 50,400 kW altogether. I keep coming back to that number.

Anyway I wanted somewhere to put all the stuff I find about her, so now it is here. There is quite much already and I will probably find more. The engines are my favourite part but I like looking at the old photos too, when she still had GOTLAND on the side.

M/S Drotten entering Visby harbour
Drotten entering Visby. Photo by Fino Munich, CC BY-SA 4.0. You can click it to see the big photo.

Ship facts

Here is the long list. Most of this is from Gotlandsbolaget. I wanted the actual numbers here because just saying “a big ferry” is a bit boring.

Destination Gotland lists her as SF1500. Her Swedish routes connect Visby with Nynäshamn and Oskarshamn.

Some other numbers from The Ferry Site:

The measurements are a bit annoying. Some pages say 195.8 m long and 25 m wide. Gotlandsbolaget says 196 m and 25.67 m. I found the old design sheet now and its 25 m figure says moulded breadth. So the label matters too. I keep Gotlandsbolaget’s numbers in the big list. I still do not know why every cargo figure is different.

Engines

Ok the engines. FOUR Wärtsilä 12V46C diesels. I would really want to see them up close. Just standing beside one must feel crazy when you are used to a normal car engine. And then remember there are three more in the same ship.

Wärtsilä says they supplied eight 46 series main engines and six 20 series auxiliary engines for Drotten and her sister together. They supplied propellers for one ship as well, but it does not say which one. That is irritating because obviously that is the next thing I want to know. Wärtsilä.

I did some maths with the figures:

Nearly 53 km/h sounds normal until you look at the photo again. That WHOLE thing moving at that speed. Of course she does not do 28.5 knots all the time. These are just my calculations from the listed figures.

Who designed her

KNUD E. HANSEN worked on the design from the owner’s concept. Their page is called Visby but it covers Gotland too. Both were built at Guangzhou and delivered in 2003. I nearly skipped the page because of the name, but there is a proper specification PDF there.

They worked on the structure, rooms, machinery, electrics and pipes. Also model tests and noise and vibration. I keep thinking about how many things have to fit inside. From outside you mostly see windows and a funnel, but someone had to work out where every pipe goes.

Designer’s page.

More things from their original specification sheet:

I like that this PDF still says M/S Gotland. It is a little piece of the ship from before she became Drotten.

Inside the ship

I can spend way too long looking at this deck plan. You start with “where is the restaurant” and then you are following all the stairs instead.

The cabins are called kupéer in Swedish and “day cabins” on the English plan. Also försalong is the front lounge and aktersalong is the aft lounge. I know the Swedish names better so sometimes I have to stop and think what they are in English.

When she was called Gotland

She was M/S Gotland from 2003 to 2020. I really like the old pictures with GOTLAND written on her. Same bridge, same ship, just another name. You need to search both names or you miss so many photos.

But be careful because “Gotland ferry” gives you several different ships. This is the 2003 one, IMO 9223796. I check that number when a page looks confusing. Much easier than trying to follow all the names.

Her sister was Visby and is now Visborg. Then the newer ships got the names Gotland and Visby too. I understand why the company wants to keep the names but it makes searching so annoying sometimes.

The Ferry Site’s name history and photos.

Places she has sailed

She has actually been to quite many places. I added the early dates too because “built 2003” leaves out a lot. These four are from the NI Ferry Site history.

The Ireland bit is so cool to me. I always connect Drotten with Visby and then there she is in a French port with trucks going to Ireland. She replaced Optima Seaways, which was going back to the Baltic, according to the port announcement. I want to find more photos from those months. Especially ones where you can see what changed for DFDS.

My sources

These are the pages I used. Checked 19 September 2026. Some old pages still say she is on routes she has already left, so check the date if you are looking for where she is now.