Riding Korea's first domestically built cruise ferry through 4.5-meter waves

Walking down the corridor, a reporter lost balance and stumbled into the wall. Standing still, the body listed to one side. The PanStar Miracle — South Korea's first domestically built cruise ferry — had sailed out of Busan Port at 2:40 p.m. Sept. 6 bound for Osaka, Japan, and was now plowing through waves averaging more than 3 meters.

Part of the reason the sea turned so rough was the indirect influence of Typhoon Krovanh, the 24th named storm of the season. Krovanh never made landfall on the Korean Peninsula, but it moved erratically near Okinawa, changing direction multiple times in an unusual pattern. High waves rolled across the waters around Jeju, and maritime weather warnings remained in effect.

Even the vessel's massive hull — displacing more than 20,000 tons — could not fully escape the ocean's force. Wave heights soared to a maximum of 4.5 meters that day, and the ship repeatedly rose on the swells before dropping back down. The rolling motion was felt clearly inside the cabins.

The battle with the rough sea lasted about six hours. When the vessel passed through the Korea Strait around 8 p.m., conditions changed. The waves subsided noticeably and the hull, which had been swaying sharply from side to side, steadied itself. Within the span of a few hours, passengers experienced both a churning sea and a calm one aboard the same ship.

This ferry, which crosses the sea instead of flying, is more than a simple mode of transport. The PanStar Miracle, which entered service last April, is the first cruise ferry built at a domestic South Korean shipyard. It carries passengers and cargo together on the Busan–Osaka route.

Stepping aboard the 22,129-gross-ton vessel feels like walking into a large resort. More than 100 cabins share space with restaurants, a sauna and a fitness facility. On the upper deck, an outdoor swimming pool looks out over the open sea.

On board, families treating the voyage itself as the destination were easy to find. Among them was an American family of four in the middle of a two-month trip across Asia. They had toured Osaka and Kyoto and were now sailing back to Busan on the PanStar Miracle.

"We wanted the kids to experience crossing into another country by sea instead of by plane," the family said. "On a plane, the kids just stare at the screen — here they can watch the ocean and walk around the ship together." The children played games at the kids' club while the family shared a meal in a lounge overlooking the water.

For one family from Ulsan, the voyage was a trip to mark the 80th birthdays of two mothers. They had brought both their mother and mother-in-law to Osaka and Kyoto, choosing the cruise ferry because it allowed the elderly women to travel at a more relaxed pace.

"I was so proud to see how much they loved watching the sea — more than I expected," the Ulsan passenger said. "From the moment we boarded, it felt like we were already on a trip, not just getting somewhere. The food was great, too." He added that a shared soak in the sea-view sauna with the two women would be a memory he would carry for a long time.

For both families, time spent on the PanStar Miracle was never just about getting from one place to another. For one, the ship was a space to give children a new way of experiencing travel between countries. For the other, it was a destination in itself — a place to sit with two octogenarian mothers and watch the sea go by.

Technology to handle rough seas is built into the vessel. The PanStar Miracle is fitted with fin stabilizers — wing-shaped devices mounted on either side of the hull that reduce side-to-side rolling and improve stability underway.

A Safe Return to Port system provides a further safety net: if an unexpected problem strikes, the ship is designed to reach the nearest port under its own power. The propulsion system uses hybrid technology to cut fuel consumption and reduce emissions.

While passengers enjoy the view from the upper decks, an entirely different kind of journey unfolds several floors below — one where containers and cars, not people, cross the border.

The PanStar Miracle can carry up to 355 passengers alongside 254 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers and 18 passenger vehicles. From the upper decks — with the pool and cabins — the ship looks like a cruise liner; descend to the cargo hold and it reveals itself as a large freighter. A floating hotel and a cargo ship coexist within the same hull.

The Korea–Japan route the PanStar Miracle plies also plays a significant role in freight. Container traffic on the Korea–Japan route reached 1,123,364 TEUs in the first half of this year. About 68 percent of that volume was transshipment cargo — goods transferred at Korean ports onto other vessels bound for third countries. The route serves as a link in the logistics network that moves freight from Japan through Busan Port and on to destinations around the world.

Financing was also essential to putting this large dual-purpose vessel to sea. The PanStar Miracle carried a shipbuilding price of $70.5 million. PanStar covered 20 percent — $14.1 million — from its own capital, with the remaining 80 percent, or $56.4 million, raised from financial institutions.

Because no large cruise ferry had ever been built domestically before, private financing alone was not enough to fund construction. The Korea Ocean Business Corporation provided a debt guarantee of up to $53.58 million — 95 percent of the funds raised from financial institutions — equivalent to about 75 billion won. The policy-finance backing strengthened the credit profile and made it possible to secure the capital needed for a large-scale shipbuilding project.

The corporation issued the dollar-denominated debt guarantee for the construction financing in December 2022. The completed PanStar Miracle was delivered last April and deployed on the Busan–Osaka route.

The PanStar Miracle reached Osaka Port on Monday morning. After passing through the Korea Strait around 8 p.m. Saturday, the vessel sailed the now-calm waters the rest of the way to Japan. Passengers who had boarded in Busan, along with the containers and vehicles in the hold, had all crossed the sea overnight.

From the moments when bodies lurched against walls in 3-meter swells to the quieter hours when families wandered the decks on a glassy sea, the line between transit and travel blurred aboard this ship. Up top, children pressed their faces to the windows and two octogenarian mothers took in the view. Down in the cargo hold, containers and cars made the same crossing.

Travel above, logistics below — two faces of the 22,129-ton PanStar Miracle, riding the waves between Busan and Osaka.