The theme of this room is seafaring in general, navigation and saftey at sea, as well as training of sailors in Loviisa.

The glass display presents the trips of Loviisa seafarers to North and South America as well as to Alaska. The objects in the display consist of handcrafts made by sailors and souveniers they have brought from abroad.

The room is to be viewed counterclockwise.

9. NAVIGATING THE FINNISH ARCHIPELAGO AND MAPPING OF THE GULF OF FINLAND

From the Gulf of Finland, the Finnish archipelago looks like a continuous strip of coastline. Nevertheless, the southern coast of Finland consists of thousands of islands, islets and underwater reefs. In ancient times, sailing in Finnish waters was based on oral knowledge of recognizable landmarks.

The first nautical chart with navigation descriptions over the Baltic Sea was drawn up by the General Director of the Swedish Pilotage, Johan Månsson, in 1644, and was used in navigating the Gulf of Finland by both the royal fleet and merchant mariners for over a hundred years.

To be able to defend Finland, the royal fleet of the Swedish Empire required more precise information about shipping routes and the nature of the seabed, as well as safe ports and anchorages. After the Treaty of Turku in 1743, the Swedish Pilotage began extensive nautical surveys to map the entire southern coast of Finland.

The sea fortress Svartholm, which was planned to be built outside Loviisa, was to serve the archipelago fleet that Augustin Eherensvärd intended to build for coastal defense. The head of the Finnish fortification brigade Anders Johan Nordenberg (nobbled Nordenskiöld) was given the task of surveying and marking the fairway from the sea to the new border and staple town of Loviisa.

The surveyed fairway that meandered between underwater depths was narrow and shallow in many places. It required skill, and favorable winds, to reach the town’s harbor, which lay at the far end of the shallow bay. (The place where our museum is situated today.)

During the years 1746 and 1748–1751, supplementary measurements were carried out in the archipelago outside Loviisa by the Director General of the Swedish Pilotage, Jonas Hahn, who drew the map with navigation instructions over the inlet fairway to the town. (You find this map by the window.)

Map: Johan Nordenankar, 1790. Stockholm. National Archives of Sweden.

9. LANDMARKS – ORRENGRUND BEACON TOWER

It was important for the merchants of the town to secure the passage of their own vessels. Therefore, they also erected maritime safety devices such as wooden beacons and beacon cairns on beaches and islets to guide ships to the pilotage boarding points and inland waterways.

During the years 1746–1748, a pilot house and two half-timbered beacons were built on the Orrengrund islands. Inside the eastern beacon was an upper platform with four observation hatches, where the pilots kept watch for the approaching ships.

According to the regulations, signal fires were to be lit at nightfall. These were burned with coal or wood in open pots in the outer archipelago and on high cliffs. For unknown reasons, the western beacon of Orrengrund was destroyed by fire in June 1775 and was never rebuilt.

The eastern beacon cairn has since then been moved and repaired several times. During the Crimean War in 1856, many landmarks along the Finnish coast were destroyed, including the Orrengrund beacon tower. The current beacon tower was built in 1858 and is still important for navigatiors in the Gulf of Finland. The tower has served as a watchtower for pilots and as a coastal artillery observation and fire control tower.

9. FAIRWAY MARKINGS

Due to the lack of accurate maps and channel information, the royal fleet of the Swedish Empire often had to resort to the help of inhabitants of the archipelago even in the 18th century. Fishermen and their descendants formed Finland’s first Pilotage Service, whose task was also to ensure maritime safety.

Pilots were responsible not only for piloting the ship but also for marking the channels and for preparing the channel marks, which were made during the winter, when the pilot stations were closed. The first signs at sea were flag signs, later wooden signs. Wooden signs were in use until the early 1980s.

The navigable channels were marked in the spring as soon as the ice broke up. Pilots had to know the reefs and shallows in their pilotage area precisely and know the cross-bearings to determine the locations of the marks even when they were missing for some reason. In the autumn, the sea marks were removed.

Because the channels ran along what was considered the best navigable route, pilots also had to ensure that sailing ships did not throw stones they used as ballast into the otherwise shallow fairways. Pilots had to carry a plumb line to measure the depth of the fairway and check the quality of the bottom.

Responsibility for managing the fairways remained with the pilots until the 1970s, when a separate Fairway Management departement at the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency was established.

9. LIGHT BEACONS

The eastern coastal routes of the Gulf of Finland lacked sufficient lighting still at the end of the 19th century. In the autumn darkness, ships waited for dawn in the outer archipelago and at proven or marked anchorages.

The invention of the kerosene lamp made navigation in the dark possible. For steamboat traffic, the first so-called unmanned light beacons were introduced in 1883–1888, which were later powered by acetylene gas in the 20th century. The Pilotage and Lighthouse Service was responsible for the lighting. The first light beacons were built of wood with a lantern on the wall. Later, the design was an octagonal lighthouse made of iron after the Norwegian model.

An inland waterway was built from Loviisa to Kotka between 1897 and 1901. The waterway was of great importance for the transport of timber and for the connections of the coastal and archipelago population to Loviisa and Kotka. It was frequently used by barges and fishing boats.

The railway from Vesijärvi in ​​Lahti to the new port of Loviisa in Valko was also completed at the turn of the 20th century. The increased transport of goods and passenger traffic led to the construction of the first light beacons in the fairway from Loviisa eastwards in the summer of 1902: on the pilot islands of Boistö and Löfö, among others.

The following year, the fairway to Valko harbor was straightened and marked with seven new beacon lights. A sector lighthouse was built on the western cape of Orrengrund island. It was rebuilt in 1923, and the light was replaced with an AGA light.

All lighthouses in Finland were turned off for the winter in the 1940s.