SuomenJoutsen is a steel-hulled full-rigged ship with three square rigged masts. Built in 1902 by Chantiers de Penhoët in St. Nazaire, France, as Laënnec, the ship served two French owners before she was sold to German interest in 1922 and renamed Oldenburg. In 1930, she was acquired by the Government of Finland, refitted to serve as a school ship for the Finnish Navy and given her current name. Suomen Joutsen made eight long international voyages before the Second World War and later served in various support and supply roles during the war. From 1961 on she served as a stationary seamen's school for the Finnish Merchant Navy. In 1991, Suomen Joutsen was donated to the city of Turku and became a museum ship moored next to Forum Marinum.
History
Laënnec (1902–1922)
In 1902, the French shipping company Société Anonyme des Armateurs Nantais ordered two 3,100-ton full-rigged ships from Chantiers de Penhoët in Saint-Nazaire. The first ship, launched on 7 August 1902, was christened Laënnec after René Laennec, a French doctor and inventor of the stethoscope. On 18 September 1902 she was followed by the second ship, named Haudaudine after Pierre Haudaudine, which was lost off the coast of New Caledonia on 3 January 1905.Shipwreck. Colonist, 5 January 1905. On 23 October 1902 Laënnec left Saint-Nazaire and headed to Cardiff, England, to load coal bound for Iquique, Chile.Auvinen (2002), pages 9–14.Aalste et al. (1989), pages 10–11.
Laënnec was almost sunk on her maiden voyage when she collided with an English steam ship Penzance in the Bay of Biscay, sinking the fully laden steamer within minutes. Laënnec, also seriously damaged, was towed to Barry for repairs. One of the reasons for the incident was that she was not carrying enough sailing ballast on her voyage from the shipyard, and as a result her rudder was not completely submerged in water, significantly reducing the maneuverability of the ship. Towards the end of the nine-month voyage, while carrying potassium nitrate from Chile to Bremerhaven, Germany, a minor mutiny broke out when four crew members disobeyed orders from Captain Turbé.
In 19061920 according to some sources. Laënnec was sold to a French shipping company Compagnie Plisson. She made several voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and around Kap Horn to the Pacific Ocean, and around the Cape of Good Hope to Australia under the command of Captain Achille Guriec. On her way back to Europe she carried wheat or potassium nitrate.
On 12 December 1911, while unloading potassium nitrate at the port of Santander, Spain, Laënnec was severely damaged when a storm pushed her against the pier and ripped the ship from her moorings, causing the full-rigged ship to drift against a Dutch steam ship Rhehania. As there was no shipyard large enough to accommodate Laënnec in Santander, the ship was emptied and inclined until her damaged hull plating was exposed and could be repaired within the harbour. The repairs took 20 days and the ship, which by that time had become a popular attraction for the local people, left Spain on 1 February 1912. In 1914 the main mast of Laënnec broke off and fell over the starboard side when the ship was struck by a heavy storm in the North Atlantic Ocean. She was towed to Brest for repairs. On 12 June 1916 Captain Guriec died onboard Laënnec while the ship was passing the Cape of Good Hope on her way back to Europe. The command was assumed by the first mate who, according to some sources, also perished before the ship arrived in England. Later the command was given to Captain Émile Delanoë.
When the First World War broke out, Laënnec was equipped with two deck guns. Due to the presence of German U-boats in Europe, the ship spent the war years trading in the United States East Coast. After the war, she arrived back to her home port, Saint-Nazaire, after a 150-day voyage from Australia to be stripped and laid up. On 1 December 1920 Laënnec was put for sale.
Oldenburg (1922–1930)
In late November 1922, after having been laid up for two years, Laënnec was sold to a German shipping company H. H. Schmidt & Co. from Hamburg. After refitting she was renamed Oldenburg after the city of Oldenburg and, through an agreement with the German school ship association Deutscher Schulschiffverein, she became a school ship for the German merchant navy.Auvinen (2002), pages 15–17. Among the men who received their training onboard Oldenburg over the years was the German U-boat ace Günther Prien.
In 1925, while rounding Kap Horn, Oldenburg lost her main mast in a storm and had to seek shelter due to damaged rigging. After emergency repairs in Montevideo, Uruguay, she crossed the Atlantic and headed back to Hamburg. However, due to strong easterly winds she was forced to pass the British Isles on the northern side instead of the English Channel. 78 days after leaving the Río de la Plata estuary, Oldenburg was taken into tow by a German tugboat and towed to Hamburg.
In 1928 Oldenburg was sold to another German shipping company, Seefart Segelschiffs-Reederei GmbH from Bremen. In 1930, on her last voyage under the German flag, Oldenburg was almost lost when the cargo of phosphate shifted in heavy weather. After two weeks in a heavy storm, the longitudinal bulkhead gave way and the ship assumed a list of 55 degrees. Lifeboats, spare yards and the kitchen stove were lost overboard. However, the crew managed to righten the ship and sail her to Malmö, Sweden. After unloading the ship was moved to Bremerhaven to be laid up.
SuomenJoutsen (1930–)
Acquisition and refitting
Although the school ship was left out from the Finnish Naval Act of 1927, the Finnish Navy decided to keep looking for a suitable vessel and purchase it separately from the major fleet renewal program. Over the years, opinions both in favor and against a school ship had been presented, but it was generally agreed that such vessel would be in many ways beneficial for the Finnish Navy. Initially there was also disagreement about the type of the ship — some were in favor of a modern steam ship that could be used in the local waters while the others preferred a traditional sailing ship that would teach the cadets traditional seaman skills and bring them closer to merchant mariners. The latter was also recommended by foreign naval officials, and finally the Finnish Navy agreed on a sailing ship. This was further helped by the Wall Street Crash of 1929 that had brought the prices down, and the fact that windjammers had been largely replaced by steam ships.
In April 1930, the Parliament of Finland allotted 4,000,000 Finnish markkas for procuring a second-hand full-rigged ship and refitting it as a school ship for the Finnish Navy. During the summer of 1930, the Finnish officials inspected a number of Finnish and foreign ships that were offered for sale. These included Gustav Erikson's four-masted barques Pommern and Herzogin Cecilie, and several other ships, but all were deemed either too large or too dilapidated. In the end, the most suitable candidate came from Germany where Oldenburg, a 28-year-old former school ship of the German merchant navy, was offered for sale.Aalste et al. (1989), page 9. After inspecting the ship in Bremen, the Finnish officials purchased her in August 1930 and the German crew sailed the ship to Helsinki.Auvinen (2002), pages 18–19.
After having been handed over to the Finnish Navy, Oldenburg was towed to Uusikaupunki for refitting. The work, which began in late 1930 and continued until November 1931, included replacing part of the bottom plating, building an additional tweendeck, refurbishing the rigging, painting the whole ship and rebuilding her cargo holds to accommodate up to 180 men. The shipyard was responsible for the structural alterations while 62 future crew members and cadets of the Finnish Navy were responsible for the other tasks, including carrying 1,200 tons of stones to the ship as sailing ballast.
On 1 November 1931, after a number of delays, Oldenburg was renamed SuomenJoutsen (Swan of Finland) after Finska Svan, a Swedish 16th century warship that took part in the naval action of 7July1565 between Sweden and Denmark. After launching, SuomenJoutsen broke her moorings in the strong breeze and damaged two ships, gunboat Karjala and Osmo, a laid-up full-rigged ship built in 1869, before she was brought under control. On 4 November 1931, she left the shipyard for Helsinki, under tow and escorted by minelayer M-1.Aalste et al. (1989), page 18.
School ship (1931–1939)
Due to delays during the refitting and later problems with the steam heating system, the first voyage of SuomenJoutsen was delayed until late December. Captain Arvo Lieto proposed postponing the departure until the next autumn as Christmas was drawing near and the sea was already freezing, but on 21 December 1931 President P. E. Svinhufvud ordered the ship to begin her first international school sailing under the Finnish flag. SuomenJoutsen was towed to the sea on the following day, but she had to wait for favourable winds outside Porkkala until 28 December, at which point she had already been grounded once. The streak of bad luck continued when the ship was anchored in Trongisvágsfjørður in Suðuroy, Faroe Islands, after stopping to purchase more lubrication oil at Trongisvágur. SuomenJoutsen dragged her anchors in a storm measuring 11–12 on the Beaufort scale, drifting stern first towards the shore. After two trawlers and a tugboat managed to get the full-rigged ship safely to the harbour, it was found out that the rudder had been damaged and the ship was towed to England for drydocking. After repairs, SuomenJoutsen continued to the Canary Islands, where she remained for three weeks while Captain Lieto was relieved of command and replaced by John Konkola, who served as the captain of the school ship for six full and two partial voyages. From the Canary Islands, SuomenJoutsen headed south, but the refrigeration system failed before the Equator and she had to turn back before a line-crossing ceremony could be held. However, the crew got some consolation when news about the end of prohibition in Finland reached the ship while she was sailing towards Finland in the Baltic Sea. SuomenJoutsen arrived in Finland on 22 May 1932 and was drydocked at Suomenlinna shortly thereafter.Aalste et al. (1989), pages 27–33.
The second voyage of Suomen Joutsen began on 18 October 1932, and after stopping briefly in the Canady Islands and Cape Verde, she crossed the Equator on 11 December for the first time flying the Finnish flag. On 24 December, the crew celebrated traditional Finnish Christmas outside Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and arrived at the port on the following morning. The visit of "Cisne Blanco de Finlandia", the white swan of Finland, was widely covered in local newspapers. From Rio de Janeiro, Suomen Joutsen continued her voyage to Montevideo, Uruguay, and then, against her original sailing plan, to Buenos Aires. After leaving Argentine and visiting a number of ports in the Caribbean, Suomen Joutsen crossed the Atlantic and finally arrived in Finland on 3 May 1933. On the way back, her crew caught a number of sea turtles for the Helsinki Zoo.Aalste et al. (1989), pages 34–37