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New Dawn

The last great wave of new windjammers was built after the Second World War. On December 17. 1944 Finland and the Soviet Union signed the agreement on war indemnity, which included a large number of ships. Among others Finland surrendered 90 wooden 300-ton schooners. After these schooners large wooden sailing ships have not been built in Finland.

After the war jobs were scarce in many places, so to earn their living farmers returning from the front to coastal areas started to build seagoing ships on their lands - without instructions. During the next three years 53 ships were built, and they transported building materials, sand, logs and other products to Helsinki that was partially destroyed in the bombings. Some of the ships transported cargoes of sand as late as in the 1970's, but by then they had been converted to motor ships.

These ship builders carried on the long tradition of "farmer sailing" and transferred the shipbuilding craftsmanship onto new generations. Some of these men are still working on the dock.