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Golden Era

The industrialization of Europe meant increase in the need of raw materials and food, which led to intensification of world trade. The number of world's sailings ships reached its pinnacle in 1872, when about 20 000 windjammers sailed the world's seas. As the demand for ship cargo grew, Finnish entrepreneurs found the market, and started transporting corn, salt, coal, coffee, and timber.

Compared with the population the Finnish merchant fleet of the time was one of the greatest in the world. Only Norway, England, the Netherlands and Greece were ahead of Finland. From the 1890's the Finnish sailing fleet started to decrease in number and deteriorate in shape, because Finns could not buy ships from abroad and building new ships was no more profitable.

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