| Tug boat of A. Ahlström Ltd.
Ahlström Forest Company ordered the boat in 1910 as tug boat, primarily for the needs of Varkaus mills.
Paul Wahl & Co from Varkaus built the hull connecting a steel board (8 mm) to the ice-breaker’s prow.
Upstream waters of Varkaus, 1928. |
The work was done with own resources as for the hull, boiler, engine and furnishings. From suppliers they bought mainly accessories. The main auxiliary engine’s electric dynamo (65V DC) was purchased from Gottfrid Strömberg and the steam turbine that made it work from Alfa Laval.
According to the order book kept in the archives, the price of the Warkaus was 62.324 Finnish Marks. Most of the work was done by the warden and a crew of six men, tugging steam ferries in the summer from Kuopio to Varkaus and working as ice-breaker in the winter. |
The work of the crew was hard and also dangerous. The vessel was at work 24 hours a day, 8-9 months per year.
Ferries broke apart because of the storms or grounded. On record is also the collision of the s/s Orivesi towards the Warkaus at the Joensuu harbour in 1928, causing a breach on one side of the Warkaus.
History books mention long time masters such as the “legendary” Otto Kemiläinen from the 1920s/30s, as well as
Antti Pakarinen and Vilho Kuupakko from the 1940s/50s. As engine drivers history books mention A. Juutilainen and Y. Havukainen in the 1920s/30s and also Veikko Pastinen as the last full time engine driver. During the Civil War, the
Warkaus was in Helsinki, at the disposal of the Suomenlinna sea fortress and during the Continuation War, it worked
as a service boat and evacuation boat in Saimaa for the Finnish army.
As written at the Savonlinna harbour by a machinist of the Warkaus in memory of the war times in the 1980s:
First came the question: ”Is this the HONEST WARKAUS?” Then….. “We navigated day and night with five barges full of evacuated people from Lappeenranta to the safe Varkaus. There was no food for the crew and everybody was hungry! At some point I saw from the engine room a pork, here on the wooden quay. The owner was nowhere. So I grabbed the pork and brought it to the engine room where we grilled it”. “The crew was full for many days!”
The Warkaus VII, from the same Warkaus series, can be still seen on Varkaus waters and one was seen also in Nishni Novgorod, Russia. |
Warkaus in the 1950s. |
Unemployed in Pirttivirta, Varkaus, 1956-1967
In the 1950s, when the economy started to get better after the war and tug work was more needed, the diesel technique which came already before the war became definitely the favourite.
For the renewal, the engine and the boiler were removed from the steam tug boats and replaced with diesel engines. Luckily the Warkaus was saved from this destiny and the steam engine remained. Steam boats started to remain unemployed as reserve boats. In the 1960s, little by little forest companies, Ahlström included, started to demolish their boats or to sell them to privates, at the price of the demolition, as leisure boats. In Sweden the old ships which were no longer in use became a hobby among groups of youngsters. And in Finland as well!
Photos: Warkaus before the repairs of ”Lirimassen".
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