Suomen Joutsen - Finnish Swan.

Sailing ship Suomen Joutsen or in English Finnish Swan has to me sentimental value. Why so? Okay I remember very good my late father’s stories which he told to me when I was young man. He told to me that in the thirties he was elected to the crew member of Suomen Joutsen. It was planned that it make big ocean passage around the South America via Panama Canal. But what happed? My father became seriously ill before that voyage and so he was left onshore.

It was very hard case for my farther and many years later he begun to build miniature model to the scale of 1:100. How long time it took, I do not know, but from my mind it was beautiful.

Always I was admiring this scale model and I thought how it would has been to sail on it. But when I was adult my home house was burned by thunderbolt. In this fire I lost all my souvenirs I had and of course the scale model of Suomen Joutsen was burned and photos I took from it. Now this ship is only in my mind. This spring I visited for the first time Suomen Joutsen in Turku where it is nowadays a museum ship.

Seen from behind in Turku (Finland).

Look how many ropes there are!

Cool.

When looking this photo I would like to sail to exotic countries where Cumbia rhythms are boiling my blood.

"Dual steering wheel". Why?

Anchor. Must have rust protection, I think.

Ahoy, land on the horizon.

Look how in good order all the ropes are.

Suomen Joutsen = Finnish Swan.

Beauty of the seas.

Some info about Suomen Joutsen:

Made in France in dock of St.Nazaire 07.08.1902. Original name was Laënnec and it first served as French sailing boat. Later Germans bought it and they baptized it to Oldenburg. But when the Finnish State bought it was renamed to Suomen Joutsen (Finnish Swan).

Measures: Length 84.3 m, breadth 12,2 m, draft 6.3 m. Suomen Joutsen made many long-distance voyages and the most distant place was Valparaiso in Chile. Type of this sailing ship is frigate.

Sir Vili "himself":

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