Big and tall

Some of you may have wondered about my very sporadic presence on the blogosphere these past several months. It’s not that I would have been busy but because I’ve had such a lot of disturbance on the blog for almost a year now it has eaten out much of the joy turning my feelings ambivalent, at times almost estranged from the whole thing.

When a trivial little blog of a retiree like myself suddenly gets hundreds of additional clicks day in day out for months whether you post anything or not the largest group of ‘visitors’ being male in their late 20s and early 30s interested in sports, computing and electronics, and when you realise your platform provider doesn’t even acknowledge there is an issue you can’t help feeling discouraged knowing there’s nothing you can do about it but either quit or wait. So I’ve waited. As I am finally seeing some indication the problem may be settling, I will hopefully start catching up soon.

Meanwhile, I am returning to the summer season I’ve almost completely ignored here so far. It offered some fabulous local events I just cannot skip posting about. One of the most memorable and certainly the most international of those we attended was the four-day stopover of The Tall Ships Races 2017 in July.

Mircea from Romania.

The Tall Ships Races are an annual series of events arranged in European waters by Sail Training International, a non-profit organisation encouraging international friendships by promoting sail training to young people. Every few years, the sailing route will take dozens of sailing ships to harbours of the Baltic Sea. This time, Finland actually had two host ports. The first leg from Halmstad, Sweden, ended in Kotka on our south-eastern coast. From there the ships sailed to Turku, and then further to Klaipeda in Lithuania and finally to Szczecin in Poland.

On board Statsraad Lehmkuhl from Norway.

Bow of Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

And what a feast is was! Turku is quite a professional in arranging major maritime events having hosted The Tall Ships Races in 1996, 2003 and 2009, as well as a unique Culture 2011 Tall Ships Regatta that marked Turku’s European Capital of Culture year. The special vibes could be felt all over downtown. The actual event area stretched on both sides of the river Aura from the Forum Marinum maritime museum by the passenger harbour to the first bridge 1.5km away. The weather was quite cloudy during the opening ceremony that culminated in flybys of the Midnight Hawks aerobatics team of the Finnish Air Force. However, it turned most lovely by the weekend when there was simply no end to the pouring crowds.

Sørlandet from Norway.

Dar Mlodziezy from Poland.

Sedov from Russia behind the Finnish Anya.

There are a few prerequisites for participation in The Tall Ships Races: the sailing ship must be a monohull vessel with a waterline length of no less than 9.14m (30ft) and at least half of the crew must be aged 15-25 years. Therefore, the vessels attending were quite versatile in size and status from smaller domestic yachts to spectacular large training vessels from far-away countries.

Rupel from Belgium.

Kapitan Borchardt from Poland behind Achim Kühn's sculpture Harmonia (ie Harmony).

This time, the number of ships moored on the river for the public to marvel was slightly short of 100. You could also step on board several of the larger ones to have a closer look. According to the local organisers, the City of Turku, the event attracted a record-breaking 544,000 visitors, making it the largest of the many Finland 100 events celebrating the centenary year of Finnish independence.

Shtandart from Russia and the Föli waterbus operating between the town and the Ruissalo island.

Some inventive measures were necessary to help the pedestrian masses move from one side of the river to the other. An island ferry had been hired to complement the transport capacity of the Föri river ferry running all year round and the ‘Little Föri’ ferry operating during the summer holiday season. Because of this and the sightseeing cruises of local entrepreneurs, the river never stopped looking busy although it was closed to private boat traffic throughout the event.

Cisne Branco from Brazil marked the centenary of Finland with a cool specially designed banner.

There were lots of activities, music performances, catering sections, vendors’ stalls, etc, all around the area to charm, refresh and entertain the visitors. I must admit I would have preferred a tighter focus on the subject matter with less on-site hassle as was the case at the Helsinki event in 2013 (my post here) but the many families with young children probably felt differently.

We spent practically the whole of Saturday walking with our weekend visitors from ship to ship only to find we hadn’t reserved enough time to see everything there would have been to see. We also returned after dinner to watch the fireworks highlighting the last night of the event. Now that I’m looking at these summery photos I can’t believe they were taken only four months ago. Even if the temperature still stays most of the time slightly above freezing point, at this precise moment in November it seems unlikely I would ever feel warm again...

Above and below Sabab Oman II from Oman.

Figurehead of Sabab Oman II.

Next year this great event will be arranged in the North Sea. The Tall Ships Races 2018 will be kicked off in Sunderland in the UK on July 11, from where the voyage will continue to Esbjerg in Denmark and Stavanger in Norway and finally to Harlingen in The Netherlands closing there on August 6. But already before that – between May 25 and June 18 – The Three Festivals Tall Ships Regatta 2018 will be visiting Liverpool in the UK, Dublin in Ireland and Bordeaux in France.

Roald Amundsen from Germany and Royal Helena from Bulgaria.

Kruzenshtern from Russia.

I do recommend not to skip these events if you happen to be close by. What’s more, if you have a 15 to 25-year-old in the family they could sign up for a leg as a trainee. No previous sailing experience is required. How is that for a treat!

If you missed my post on the extraordinary Swan sailing yacht regatta held in Turku in 2016 you will find it here.

Swan of the oceans

Once upon a time, more precisely in the 1960s, there was a Finnish paper salesman who felt his job left him with quite a lot of spare time. As he lived on the west coast of Finland in Pietarsaari, a small town also known by its Swedish name Jakobstad, he began to build a boat in his father-in-law’s garage. He then had an idea: to start a business of his own with a vision to build the world’s best sailboats that would combine elegance with excellent cruising and racing qualities.

The hull would be made of fibre-reinforced plastic allowing serial production but the trimmings would be of wood handmade by the best of craftsmen. The boat would be named Swan. Having studied in the USA, he was such a convincer he persuaded one of the best-known naval architecture firms, the American Sparkman & Stevens, to design the first Swan for his company Nautor.

The business had a flying start when the boats began to gain success in regattas. In 1974, a Swan won the first Whitbread Round the World Race – later renamed the Volvo Ocean Race – and the rest is history, as the saying goes. Business flourished and Nautor’s Swan grew into one of the best-known and most-valued brands admired by everyone in yachting. Ever since the company has continued to build fabulously elegant sailboats in Pietarsaari, the current number amounting to some 2000, all designed by renowned naval architects.

Note the arrow brand symbol on the side.

Needless to say, my favourite colour, not to mention the sailor. 

Nevertheless, it wasn’t all plain sailing. Very early on, a fire destroyed the boatyard with a dozen of unfinished hulls. Insurance covered the damages but the firm was driven into financial difficulties when catching up what was lost. A solution was found when the forest company the owner earlier worked for bought Nautor.

The first Swan ever built, Tarantella I, currently owned by Nautor.

Years went by and the Swans built became more and more exquisite, bespoke and unique, in addition to being arguably the safest sailboats on the market. In 1998, a group of investors bought the company the main shareholder and chairman of the board being Leonardo Ferragamo of the Ferragamo fashion dynasty from Florence, one of the sons of Salvatore I posted about here. Since then, Nautor’s Swan has been even more distinctly a luxury brand out of the reach of any regular sailors. Now the least expensive new Swan is believed to be worth a million euros and the most costly some 20 times more.

But there are still quite a number of vintage Swans around, even in our country, the kind you might be lucky to find starting at 100,000 to 200,000 euros. In late July, almost a hundred of them – with the addition of a few dozen from abroad – gathered in Turku for the company’s 50th Anniversary Regatta sponsored by the Oras faucet company from the neighbouring town Rauma. 

Naturally, we went to have a closer look when the boats were moored on both sides of the river Aura. We also tried to see some glimpses of the races and made sure to be watching the parade of sails when the yachts were leaving Turku. Some of them may have been heading straight for Porto Cervo in Sardinia where another Swan regatta, this time sponsored by Rolex, took place last week.

But what happened to the founder of Nautor, Mr Pekka Koskenkylä? He stayed for a few years after selling the company, then moved to Cannes working as an agent for the firm for five years before completely moving on. Later he managed a business in Thailand building Mirabella sloops, the then world’s largest single-mast superyachts.

Just before retirement, Koskenkylä had a motor cruiser built for himself and lived in it with his wife sailing the oceans for seven years. He will be 79 next month living the life of a grandfather in the south of France in the house they built in the countryside there. He was a visionary entrepreneur whose tenacity and attention to craftsmanship and quality was a world apart from the short-term-profit-seeking business thinking prevailing today. If only his fine creation wouldn’t have been steered far beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Incidentally, the opening ceremony of the anniversary regatta was held on board the full-rigged museum ship Suomen Joutsen or The Swan of Finland that used to serve as a school ship for the Finnish navy. It was this ship that gave Pekka Koskenkylä the idea to name his boat Swan in the first place. With the founder present, the circle was beautifully closed in Turku half a century later.