QR-code plate No. 12 refers to the boards on the railing.
12. VOLUNTARY MARITIME RESCUE
For a long time, rescuing people in distress at sea depended on the help of archipelago residents and pilots. It was not until the 1870s that discussions about the need for permanent maritime rescue stations began. In 1897, rescue work became more organized when the Finnish Lifeboat Institution was established.
In the early years, the activities focused on promoting swimming skills and acquiring lifesaving equipment and boats in coastal towns and fishing villages. However, the activities gradually declined due to limited financial resources.
After the fateful shipwreck of the schooner Draken in Utö in 1929, it became clear that Finland had neither the rescue equipment to help shipwrecked people nor the ships to operate in challenging conditions. There was only one maritime rescue station with one lifeboat in Hanko.
Despite the difficult economic times, the Finnish Lifeboat Institution – the maritime rescue socitey – began establishing permanent rescue stations on the Finnish coast in the early 1930s.
THE SUPPORT OF WOMEN’S ASSOCIATIONS FOR MARITIME RESCUE WORK
Elsewhere in the world, maritime rescue associations had established permanent rescue stations and acquired lifeboats with the support of citizens and were thus able to save thousands of people from certain death.
The idea of founding an association based on volunteer work was not new in Finland either. Since the mid-19th century, women had founded sewing and carpentry associations with the aim of collecting funds for the common welfare.
In Sweden, a women’s club called “Livbojen” (Lifebuoy) was founded in Gothenburg in 1911 with the aim of supporting maritime rescue operations. Shortly after the shipwreck in Utö, Finland’s first corresponding women’s club was founded in Turku by wife of a Captain, Anna Gadd (Föreningen Pelastusrengas – Livbojen i Åbo, 1930).
The same year, Helsinki got its own association, the “Women’s Club of the Finnish Maritime Rescue Society”, led by Maila Mikkola and Jenny Wihuri. Third in order was the Lifebuoys Association of Porvoo, founded in 1934 with Elsa Brunberg as chairman.
The activities of the Finnish Lifeboat Institution were long financed with funds raised privately. Funds collected by women’s clubs formed a large part of the Institution’s annual income.
12. THE LIVEBUOY ASSOCIATION IN LOVIISA
Finland’s fourth women’s association dedicated for maritime rescue was founded in March 1935 under the name “Livbojen i Loviisa rf. – Loviisan pelastusrengas ry”. The initiator of the association was the senior pilot Anton Forsell.
The goal of the association was to enhance maritime rescue operations in the Eastern Uusimaa archipelago. Support activities were promoted through sewing evenings, where members made crafts for lottery prizes or for sale. Dances and other legal activities were also arranged.
The funds collected were donated to the Finnish Lifeboat Institution, which used them to purchase necessary rescue equipment, especially for the Orrengrund maritime rescue station.
The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association had solid and significant support from the beginning. The first chairwoman was the shipowner and colonel’s wife Nina Nordström (chairwoman 1935–1937), who had also helped found the Loviisa Seamen’s Mission and served as its chairwoman for decades. As a full member of the board of the family business Ab R. Nordström & Co. Oy, she contributed the company to become known as a major donor in Loviisa and as the initiator of projects that supported the well-being of the town.
The longest-serving chairwoman was Nina Nordström’s sister, Raisa Åkerlund, who led the association for 30 years (1939–1969), and for which she was awarded the title of honorary chairwoman in 1975. She was also active in other local associations, such as the Children’s Day Foundation and the Red Cross board. During the war years (1939–1944), the activities of the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association were interrupted, but despite that they acted as godparents for some local war children.
Throughout its history, the club has consisted of a group of hardworking women. Most of the members have been involved in the association’s activities for years and have made their selfless contribution to maritime rescue work.
The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association ended its activities in 2021 with Maria Nordström as chairwoman (2005–2021). Her path to the association was via the Loviisa Lifeboat Society, where she served as treasurer for five years before joining the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association in 1998.
Karin Baumgartner (1937–1939), Brita Strand (1970–1983, member for 36 years), Mona Salmi (1983–2002, member for 36 years) and Gun-Lis Berlin (2002–2005) also served as chairwomen of the association.
12. EDUCATIONAL WORK AND SEA RESCUE DEMONSTRATIONS
From the beginning, women’s associations undertook the task of spreading knowledge of lifesaving and arousing interest in maritime rescue work.
In August 1937, the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association organized a day dedicated to marine rescue at Tullisilla in Loviisa, where the public had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the equipment on board Finland’s first maritime rescue cruiser, OUTOORI, and the newly completed rescue station boat HAAPASAARI.
The highlight of the day was a demonstration of “rescuing shipwrecked people”. A rescue line was shot with a rocket gun from OUTOORI to an old barge lying about 150 meters away from the Tullisilta bridge, and represented a vessel in distress. A thicker rescue rope was attached to the thin line and stretched in the air between both ships. Then a rescue chair was sent along the rope out to the barge and the audience saw how a “distressed” person was pulled aboard OUTOORI where he received artificial respiration.
In the same year, with a donation from Loviisa Lifebuoy Association, the Orrengrund maritime rescue station was able to acquire an English Schermuly rescue pistol that carried the line over 300 meters, as well as an artificial respiration device designed by the Finnish engineer K. J. Westerinen.
Swimming skills among Finns were still poor in the 1950s, when the modern mouth-to-mouth method began to be developed. The first lifesaving dolls were introduced in Norway in 1960 and the following year in Finland. The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association acquired its own doll in 1964, which was in frequent use. Lifesaving demonstrations were arranged for dock workers in Valko harbor and for the staff of the town’s larger companies. The doll was also lent out for swimming courses and presented at scout camps.
The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association worked in close cooperation with the Finnish Lifeboat Institution throughout its operations, participating in its national campaigns, the most well-known of which is the production and sale of miniature lifebuoy badges.
Photo on the left side: Sea Rescue Day in Loviisa on 23 August 1937. Publication of the Finnish Sea Rescue Society. National Library.
Photos on the right side: The pilots at Orrengrund practicing. From the publications of the Finnish Maritime Rescue Society. The National Library.
12. RESCUE CRUISERS AND STATION BOATS
The primary goal of the Finnish Lifeboat Institution was to acquire station boats for the permanent rescue stations as well as rescue cruisers patrolling the sea.
The first station boats and rescue cruisers were built of wood and were completed in the late 1940s. The shipyard in Porvoo manufactured 9 station boats between 1936 and 1941.
The first steel-built rescue cruiser – HARMAJA – was completed in 1956. It took six years before the second steel-built boat was put into service, when the newly founded Kyminlinna Lifeboat Society had managed to raise enough money for the rescue cruiser named NIILO SAARINEN.
The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association participated in the acquisition of the boat, which was equipped with an ice-reinforced bow and cross-sterns. It was stationed in Kotka and had an operation range of five hundred nautical miles.
M/S SIKSALA 1962
For many years, Loviisa Lifebuoy Association had as its primary goal “to raise funds for the acquisition of a rescue boat for the Eastern Uusimaa archipelago – and especially for the Orrengrund rescue station”.
With the deployment of the rescue cruiser NIILO SAARINEN in Kotka, the need for a similar boat in the Loviisa territorial waters decreased. In addition, the Orrengrund pilot station had gained access to a larger pilot vessel, which could now also be used for rescue purposes.
Therefore, in 1962, the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association decided to participate in the financing of the construction of an ice-strengthened harbor tug, m/s SIKSALA, in cooperation with the town of Loviisa. The condition of the cooperation was that the vessel would have equipment suitable for maritime rescue work and that its crew would be proficient in maritime rescue work. The donation was significant at the time: 2.5 million Finnish marks.
The vessel was ordered from the Loviisa shipyard of company Rauma-Repola Oy. It was a tugboat type that was part of the shipyard’s construction program, but due to its intended use, its structure differed from the other vessels in the series.
In 1963, the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association purchased life jackets for SIKSALA, the use of which was still rare in Finland at that time.
You will find a photo of M/S Siksala by the door to the next room.
12. LOCAL COOPERATION
From the very beginning, the maritime rescue service has been based on local knowledge and seamanship. As the number of maritime rescue tasks increased, rescue responsibilities were shared between different authorities.
As small boat traffic increased in the 1960s, maritime rescue operations shifted more towards assisting small boats. In the absence of telephone connections, so-called unnecessary alarms also increased. Search missions were often carried out with very vague information.
In 1967, Finland’s first radio telephone network from the Sea of Åland to Helsinki was completed. At the beginning of the following decade, wireless shortwave radio telephones became increasingly common on small boats. To ensure the safety of small boat traffic, the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association acquired a VHF radio telephone for the Boistö Coast Guard Station in 1973.
LOVIISA LIFEBOAT SOCIETY
The efforts of the local voluntary associations became an equally important part of the cooperation and therefore they received their share of the funds raised by Loviisa Lifebuoy Association. The Loviisa Lifeboat Society began its operations in 1974 and still participate in government-led search and rescue missions in the sea area between Porvoo and Pyhtää.
The society’s first rescue boat was purchased from Espoo to Loviisa and renamed ANTONIUS after the founder of Loviisa Lifebuoy Association, Anton Forsell. The boat, which was built in 1968, was shallow-draft and well suited to archipelago conditions. The Loviisa Lifebuoy Association participated in the purchase and donated a radar and a plastic-hulled rowing boat to rescue boat ANTONIUS.
In 1987, a “new” rescue boat with twin engines was acquired and thoroughly renovated, which was named ANTONIUS II. The boat, which was built in 1939, had a top speed of 8 knots. It took about an hour to get out to Orrengrund. The boat served in the waters of Loviisa until 1999, when the Loviisa Lifeboat Society finally received a brand new, mass-produced rescue boat, DEGERBY. With it, they reached Orrengrund in just 15 minutes.
With the new boat type, the Finnish Lifeboat Institution also began to regularly train rescue vessel crews, who are on alert throughout the open water season.
Photo to the left: Antonius II. Photographer: Bengt Sandvik. Loviisa Lifebuoy Association archives.
Photos to the right: Antonius II. Photo: Bengt Sandvik. The lifebuoy in the archives of the Lovisa Association.
Women from the Loviisa Lifebuoy Association, led by the lifeboat Antonius II, on a summer trip to Orrengrund in 1999.