We kindly ask you to move from the stairs to the upper platform, where you have a better view on the paintings of DOROTHEA and TJERIMAI.
8. LOVIISA REGISTERED, ATLANTIC CROSSING SHIPS THAT NEVER VISITED THE HOME PORT
The three-masted steel barque DOROTHEA
The shipwreck of the three-masted steel barque DOROTHEA in Bermuda waters in the summer of 1913 is one of the unsolved mysteries of the town’s sailing history.
In 1902 a newly established shipping company called “Lovisa Rederi Bolag N. Tarasoff & Co.” bought the German steel barque DOROTHEA. The owners of the new company with equal shares were Nikolai Tarasoff, Serafim Korelin, Ivar Söderström, bank director Karl Forsell, captain Woldemar A. Winter and clerk Frans Arvidsson. K.W. Jensen was appointed as master of the ship.
On the 1st of July in 1912 the ownership of DOROTHEA was transferred to a new company named “Rederiaktiebolaget Dorothea”, in which Karl Forsell, Ivar Söderström, Frans Arvidsson and Woldermar A.Winter remained as equal owners. A new owner with a minimal shareholding, merchant Carl Lundgren, was appointed as the CEO of the company.
DOROTHEA was built in Hamburg in 1870. She was 62,17 m long and 10,25 m wide. Her draft was 6,43 m and net capacity 1 016 register tons. Before the owners from Loviisa, she had been in ownership of two different owners.
It is possible that DOROTHEA never visited her hometown during the time she was registered to Loviisa. Based on the scant information available she had been sailing between the Atlantic coastal ports, and presumably also visited some Finnish ports.
In the end of December 1912 DOROTHEA left for her last journey. She collected a cargo of timber products in Mobile in Alabama, USA, and headed for her destination in Rio de Janeiro. The master was F.A. Jansen from Kuopio, the second helmsman F.A. Johansson from Loviisa. In addition to them the crew numbered 14 men with different nationalities. The ship along with the crew disappeared without trace.
In the end of January 1913 an American wreck destroyer SENECA found a wreck without masts or crew near Bermuda that was later established as being DOROTHEA.
The three-masted barque TJERIMAI
In 1898 a Loviisa based shipping company with a majority shareholder of Nikolai Tarasoff in head bought the barque TJERIMAI, which became the last ocean-going sailing ship of Loviisa – and the very first ship of the legendary sailing ship owner Gustaf Erikson. She was named after a volcano in Java by the same name.
TJERIMAI was built in Amsterdam in 1882-1883 to transport coffee and spices from Java to Europe. The length of the ship was 57,4 m and width 11,2 m. The draft fully loaded was 6,4 m and capacity 1 500 tons. The construction of the ship was unusual. She had a steel hull on top of which there was a 4-inch timber planking below the waterline. On top of that a copper sheathing was attached for protection against speed reducing vegetation and organisms.
TJERIMAI sailed several times across the Atlantic carrying coal, sugar and timber products. Although registered to Loviisa and owned by shareholders from Loviisa, she never sailed to her hometown. She visited mainly ports in the Gulf of Bothnia to load timber products. But the crew list included many sailors from the Eastern New Land (Itä-Uusimaa) and Loviisa: the masters of the ship were Mathias Roos, J.A. Söderberg, Axel Jansén and J.A. Westerberg. Konrad Davidsson who worked as a helmsman on TJERIMAI in 1902-1903 became later the harbor master of port of Loviisa.
In September 1913, before WWI, when the haulage rates were low, Loviisa company decided to sell TJERIMAI. The buyer was an Åland based shipping company, the main shareholder of which was Captain Gustaf Erikson. Very soon Erikson was able to further increase his share in TJERIMAI. It is said that due to the good freight income of TJERIMAI Erikson could start to build up his famous fleet of windjammers.
TJERIMAI met her fate in August 1925 when she was sailing in ballast from London to Kemi in Finland. She collided with a Dutch trawler off the Dutch coast. The master died in the accident, but the remaining crew was saved.
NIKOLAI TARASOFF (1857-1930)
The main owner of the three-masted barks TJERIMAI and DOROTHEA. And the founder of the shipping company called Lovisa Rederi Bolag N. Tarasoff & Co.