Bohai Ferry, the listed Chinese ferry company, is reported to buy the 24,427 gross on Costa Voyager that was built in 2001 from Costa Crociere, part of the Carnival Corp & plc group.

“Following the establishment of a Hong Kong subsidiary dedicated to cruise business, Bohai Ferry announced that the subsidiary plans to acquire the cruise ship “Costa Voyager” for $43.68m to start its international cruise business,” Sino Shipping News said on is website.

Bohai Ferry has applied for a three-year-loan of $40m from an overseas branch of Bank of China for the purchase and conversion of the vessel. Bohai Ferry currently primarily operates passenger-roro services between Yantai and Dalian and is the largest passenger-roro vessel operator in China. It made international cruise an important development strategy when it went public in 2011,” the report said.

Costa Voyager was built as Olympic Voyager of the now defunct Royal Olympic Cruises, the Greek operator that failed in the aftermath of the 9/11 events in New York. It is one of two similar ships the company built in Germany. They have a cruising speed of 28 knots, which makes them among the fastest deep sea passenger vessels in service. However, they only accommodate 832 passengers.

Carnival group officials have indicated that some of the older and smaller units of the Costa fleet could be sold.