Shipbuilder Incat Tasmania has launched a 110 metre vehicle / passenger ferry from the shipyard at Derwent Park in Hobart Tasmania, the company said in a press release.
The ship will commence sea trials in mid January prior to delivery to her new owner Virtu Ferries for service between Malta and Sicily. Bearing the livery Saint John Paul II the vessel is named in honour of the Pope who served from 1978 to 2005, so revered the Pope has often posthumously, but unofficially, been referred to by Catholics as "St. John Paul the Great". It is the second Incat ship named in honour of a Pope; in 2013 Buquebus named their Incat 99 metre ship Francisco in honour of Argentina-born Pope Francis.