The sale of the Maltese Falcon, the vessel formerly owned by Sea Malta, seems destined to be marked by poetic irony.
The ship is going to Spain, just like the bird in the recently revived tradition going back to the days of Grandmaster Phillippe de l'Isle Adam who first presented a peregrine falcon to the King of Spain in 1530.
The vessel was auctioned in court last Thursday for just over €4 million to Grimaldi, the same company that was due to take over the state-owned Sea Malta but then rejected the deal in the wake of a dispute with the General Workers' Union and seafarers.
After the deal fell through the government put Sea Malta into liquidation and Malta Motorways of the Sea (owned by Grimaldi) took over its business, entering into a public service obligation to provide the essential maritime link with Italy.
However, unlike its historical namesake, the Maltese Falcon will not be handed over to the Spaniards, but will instead be deployed on one of Grimaldi's Italy-Spain routes.
Sullivan Maritime managing director Ernest Sullivan, whose company represents Grimaldi, made the announcement during a press conference yesterday.
The company has a new schedule which basically doubles the service it provides from Malta to Genoa and Catania and introduces a new tri-weekly service to Civitavecchia.
The service is a substantial improvement over what the Maltese industry has been accustomed to so far, Mr Sullivan said.
In fact, the service upgrade is made viable by what is known as cabotage in the business, which is basically the transport of goods between two points in the same country.
The Genoa route makes a stop in Catania and can attract trailers that would alternatively use the motorway. "That is the idea behind the concept of Motorways of the Sea," Mr Sullivan said, "offering a more eco-friendly and cost effective alternative to driving down the motorway".
The flipside for Maltese firms is that they have greater access to the north of Italy and to the rest of Europe. "Now, Maltese firms can send their truck to Spain through our service."
That is where the Maltese Falcon will be going after getting a new paintjob to cover the Sea Malta logo.
Asked whether the company had bagged a good deal, Mr Sullivan said he felt the price was fair and reflected recent valuations.
An evaluation of the vessel's value two weeks before Grimaldi and the government signed the Memorandum of Understanding for the sale of the shipping line had pushed the price of the vessel to €5.5 million, $1 million more than the agreed price - a fact which ignited a whole controversy over the sale of the national shipping line.
The re-evaluation suddenly placed the company in a more attractive position than the one it was sold at, a situation the Public Investments Ministry had branded nothing more than "monkey business".
Subsequent evaluations had placed the value of the vessel at between €3.5 million and €4 million.
The company at one stage had said that it was not even really interested in the vessel. Asked yesterday what caused the change of heart, Mr Sullivan said that in the past two years the scenario had changed and new opportunities had come up.