A strong low-pressure system that arrived in Finland on Friday night has made Saturday especially rainy and windy, and the storm is still raging at the time of writing. Departures have been canceled by several cruise ferries. Viking XPRS, taking a chance, decided to sail to Tallinn, only to turn back to Helsinki.
The ship is in total chaos. “People on board are vomiting in the corridors and goods are flying around.”
This, according to a passenger who spoke to Finnish tabloid Iltalehti, is the reality on the Viking XPRS cruise ferry that was already in the port of Tallinn but had to turn around back to Helsinki because of the raging storm on Saturday.
“We were already queuing on the car deck when the announcement was made that we were turning back,” the passenger said.
Another passenger told Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat that some people on board had already booked hotels in Tallinn and some Estonians were traveling home.
In consolidation, passengers were offered free food—for vegetarians a falafel steak and boiled potatoes.
According to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, winds have been gusting to 30 meters per second in the south-western maritime areas and average winds have been 27 meters per second in the northern parts of the Baltic Sea.
Trees have been snapped especially in western and southern parts of the country.
The wind, in many places, has been accompanied by rain; in northern Ostrobothnia, rain turned into sleet.
More than 17,000 customers were without electricity at around 08:00 in the morning.
At 17:30 on Saturday evening, the number was 15,607.
