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Kaivopuisto
The Shipyard
Thorsten Waenerberg, painting, 1873.
The South Harbour. The shipyard is in the foreground.
The merchant Johan Sederholm founded the Ullanlinna shipyard in 1746 on the site presently occupied by the Olympic Quay in the South Harbour. Skilled shipbuilders were hired from Ostrobotnia in north-west Finland to build the tall ships. The first to be completed was The Governor General von Rosen, which made five voyages to Spain. To |
the Helsinki residents' eternal regret, in 1756 the ship together with a full cargo of wine was lost off the island of Saarenmaa, south-west of Estonia.
The Ullanlinna dockyard was formed out of the Ullanlinna shipyard in 1847. In its heyday in the mid-nineteenth century it employed a couple of hundred shipbuilders. During the Crimean war, Russia placed several orders for war vessels. The largest of them was the 63m (207 feet) long steam frigate Gromovoi ('Thunder'), which was launched in 1857. The Ullanlinna dock was in operation for nearly two centuries until under the name of Helsingin laivaveistämö Oy it closed down in the1930's. |
