Crichton-Vulcan is an abandoned

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, that once formed the cornerstone of the Finnish shipbuilding industry. The shipyard is best known for the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

coastal defence ships and

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

s it produced. Shipbuilding at the yard gradually ended after 1976, after a new shipyard had been built in the suburb

Perno Perno is a district in the Naantalintie ward of the city of Turku, in Finland. It is located to the west of the city, and is mainly a high-density residential suburb. There is also a large maritime dock (Meyer Turku) located there. The current ...

. The old yard was taken over by Turku Repair Yard and used for ship repair until 2004, when they too moved to the nearby city of Naantali. The shipyard by the Aura River in Turku then lay abandoned some time and was the target of

vandalism Vandalism is the action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term f ...

. However, the site is currently being turned into an upper-class residential area. Demolition of the old buildings began in June 2011.

History

The first shipyard in Turku was established in 1732 on the eastern bank of the Aura River. The first

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

and metal workshop was established in 1842. After the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

the workshop was acquired by Scotsman William Crichton. Crichton built a new shipyard near the mouth of Aura. Soon a joint-stock company, W:m Crichton & C:o Ab was established, merging smaller shipyards. In 1913 W:m Crichton & C:o Ab went bankrupt, and a new company Ab Crichton was established in its place. Åbo mekaniska verkstads Ab was founded in 1874 and discontinued at the late 1890s. Ab Vulcan was started in 1898 to continue the operations. In 1924 the manager of Vulcan

Allan Staffans Allan Walfrid Staffans (13 February 1880 – 19 October 1946) was a Finnish technician, vuorineuvos and Shipbuilding, shipbuilder. Staffans began his career at Kone- ja Siltarakennus, Maskin- och Brobyggnad (Maskin o. Bro) shipyard in Helsinki in ...

organised a merger between the two companies creating Crichton-Vulcan Oy. It again was merged with

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

between 1936 and 1938. Wärtsilä bought the neighbouring boat and engine builder Andros in 1939 and joined it to Crichton-Vulcan. In 1966 the name of the shipyard was changed to Oy Wärtsilä Ab Turun telakka.

Naval ships

During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, the shipyard served the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution of 1917. It developed from a ...

. After

Finnish independence Finland declared its independence on 6 December 1917. The formal Declaration of Independence was only part of the long process leading to the independence of Finland. History Proclamation of Empress Elizabeth (1742) The subject of an independ ...

in 1917, Finland started a program on naval armament. Most of the ships were designed by the Dutch (German) company

Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw NV Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw (''Dutch: engineer-office for shipbuilding''), usually contracted to IvS, was a Dutch dummy company set up in The Hague and funded by the ''Reichsmarine'' after World War I in order to maintain and develop Ge ...

and built by Crichton-Vulcan. The shipyard built two coastal defence ships for the

Finnish Navy The Finnish Navy ( fi, Merivoimat, sv, Marinen) is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. The navy employs 2,300 people and about 4,300 conscripts are trained each year. Finnish Navy vessels are given the ship prefix "FNS", short for ...

. The (displacement) ''Ilmarinen'' and ''Väinämöinen'' were ordered in 1927 and delivered in 1931 and 1932, respectively.

Submarines

The shipyard also built the prototypes for the World War II German

U-boat U-boats were naval submarines operated by Germany, particularly in the First and Second World Wars. Although at times they were efficient fleet weapons against enemy naval warships, they were most effectively used in an economic warfare role ...

fleet.

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

was banned under the

Treaty of Versailles The Treaty of Versailles (french: Traité de Versailles; german: Versailler Vertrag, ) was the most important of the peace treaties of World War I. It ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. It was signed on 28 June ...

from building submarines, so work was conducted under foreign dummy companies. Three submarines were ordered in 1927. The submarines were designed by Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw; the design was based on the World War I

German Type UB III submarine The Type UB III submarine was a class of U-boat built during World War I by the German Imperial Navy. UB III boats carried 10 torpedoes and were usually armed with either an or a deck gun. They carried a crew of 34 and had a cruising range of ...

. The design work and the supervision of the construction was done by Germans. The submarines would serve as a step in the design of the German Type VIIA submarines. The ''Vetehinen'', the ''Vesihiisi'' and the ''Iku-Turso'' were commissioned in 1930 and 1931. A smaller sub, the ''Vesikko'', was launched in 1933. It too was designed by Ingenieurskantoor voor Scheepsbouw, and was the direct prototype of the German Type II submarine.

Successors

In the mid-1970s, Wärtsilä built a new, larger shipyard in

, from the center of Turku. This new shipyard in now operated by

Meyer Turku Meyer Turku Oy is a Finnish shipbuilding company located in Turku, Finland Proper. The company is fully owned by German shipbuilder Meyer Werft GmbH. The main products are cruise ships and cruiseferries. The shipbuilding facility is Perno shipy ...

and produces the world's largest

cruise ship Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports-of-call, where passengers may go on tours known as "s ...

s, the and the . After 1983 the old shipyard concentrated solely on ship repair; the last newbuilding entirely built at the old shipyard was , launched in 1979, but until spring 1983 the old shipyard continued to complete ships that were launched at the new yard and then towed to the old yard. In 1986 Wärtsilä's shipbuilding branch merged with the shipyards of the

state-owned State ownership, also called government ownership and public ownership, is the ownership of an industry, asset, or enterprise by the state or a public body representing a community, as opposed to an individual or private party. Public ownersh ...

Valmet, taking over the

Vuosaari shipyard Vuosaari shipyard was a shipyard located in the district of Vuosaari in Helsinki, Finland. Built by the Finnish state-owned company Valmet Oy in the early 1970s, the shipyard delivered 33 newbuildings and participated in building around 100 other ...

Helsinki Helsinki ( or ; ; sv, Helsingfors, ) is the Capital city, capital, primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Finland, most populous city of Finland. Located on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, it is the seat of the region of U ...

. In 1989 the new company, Wärtsilä Marine, went bankrupt. A new company,

Masa-Yards STX Finland Oy, formerly Aker Yards Oy, was a Finnish shipbuilding company operating three shipyards in Finland, in Turku, Helsinki and Rauma, employing some 2,500 people. It was part of STX Europe, a group of international shipbuilding companie ...

(now

STX Europe STX Europe AS, formerly Aker Yards ASA, was until 2012 a subsidiary of the South Korean STX Offshore & Shipbuilding. With headquarters in Oslo, Norway, STX Europe operated 15 shipyards in Brazil, Finland, France, Norway, Romania and Vietnam. T ...

), headed by yard manager

Martin Saarikangas Martin Saarikangas (born 24 January 1937) is a Finnish shipbuilder and vuorineuvos, best known as the co-founder of Masa-Yards (now Meyer Turku), after the bankruptcy of Wärtsilä Marine. From 2003 to 2007 he was a member of the Parliament of Fin ...

, took over the new shipyard in Turku and Wärtsilä's Helsinki New Shipyard. Another new company, Turku Repair Yard, was established to take over the old repair yard. In 2004 the old yard was abandoned and the company moved to a new shipyard outside the city limits on Luonnonmaa island in Naantali. The company now operates one of the largest

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

s in the

Baltic Sea The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...

area used solely for ship repair. It is owned by

BLRT Grupp BLRT Grupp (Balti Laevaremonditehas) is a shipbuilding company headquartered in Tallinn, Estonia. In addition to Estonia, the company owns shipyards in Lithuania, Finland and Norway. Its shipbuilding and ship repair subsidiaries are Tallinn Shi ...

Engines

, the company, is today one of the leading producers of large

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s for ships and power plants,Wärtsilä - Group structure
/ref> producing Wärtsilä-Sulzer and the Wärtsilä-Vasa engines. The engine factory was also located on the Aura riverbank. In 2004 Wärtsilä decided to move production of its diesel engines from Turku to its factory in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

Ships

A number of ships produced at the old shipyard are still in service, a few examples: * MV ''Freewinds'', the floating "university" of the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a scientology as a business, bu ...

. *In 1975–76 Wärtsilä delivered five

cruiseferries A cruiseferry is a ship that combines the features of a cruise ship and a Ro-Pax ferry. Many passengers travel with the ships for the cruise experience, staying only a few hours at the destination port or not leaving the ship at all, while ot ...

to the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. All of them are still in service. * Sister ships and delivered to

SF Line SF may refer to: Locations * San Francisco, California, United States * Sidi Fredj, Algeria * South Florida, an urban region in the United States * Suomi Finland, former vehicular country code for Finland In arts and entertainment Genres ...

for Turku-Stockholm service. * MS ''Bore I'' delivered to Steamship Company Bore (member of

Silja Line Silja Line is a Swedish-Finnish cruiseferry brand operated by the Estonian ferry company AS Tallink Grupp, for car, cargo and passenger traffic between Finland and Sweden. The former company Silja Oy—today Tallink Silja Oy—is a subsidiary ...

) also for Turku-Stockholm service.

References

External links

YLE archive: Documentary about shipbuilding at Wärtsilä Turku Shipyard in 1971 (in Finnish).
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