Key facts about the new ships include:

• the ships are the largest Superferries in the world able to carry both passengers and freight
  
  
• over £375 million has been spent on building the two new ships, the largest ever investment by Stena Line
  
  
• the ships were built at the Nordic Yards shipyard in Wismar, Germany, with work commencing in 2007
  
  
• the Stena Hollandica set sail from Holland on 16th May 2010, with the Stena Britannica launched from Harwich in the UK 9th October 2010
  
• the ships sail on Stena Line’s Harwich to Hook of Holland route, making that the most modern ferry route in the world
  
  
• at 240 metres in length, each Superferry would be 2.4 times as tall as Big Ben (98 metres) if stood on their end, or nearly twice as high as The London Eye (135 metres)
  
  
• 843 km of cable was used to build each Superferry. This is equivalent to four times the distance between Harwich and the Hook of Holland
  
  
• solar film used on all windows will exclude up to 82% of the sun’s radiant heat, reducing the energy required by the onboard cooling system
  
  
• the Superferry’s cargo deck surface area is equivalent to that of the size of three international FIFA standard football pitches. The decks boast five 500 metre-long lanes which can host over 300 trailers
  
  
• each ship offers just over 5.5km worth of car deck space, equivalent in length to the British Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone
  
  
• each Superferry can carry up to 300 freight vehicles and 230 cars
  
  
• each Superferry offers 1,376 beds on board in 538 cabins, which is nearly twice as many rooms as The Landmark Hotel’s 300 bedrooms
  
  
• standard beds measure 90cm in width, up to 160cm in the Captain’s Suite, with an average length of two metres. A standard passenger is therefore able to enjoy 1.8 sq metres in their bed as they travel during an overnight journey with Stena Line, compared to just 0.36 sq metres for an average economy airline passenger (79cm/31” seat pitch x 46cm/18” average seat width)
  
  
• each Superferry offers 12 kennels for dogs. During 2009 3,640 dogs travelled between Harwich and the Hook of Holland with Stena Line on their current ships (four kennels per ship)