PhotoStories : Oulu City Pictures : The great sailing ships

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The great sailing ships

As I have many times told in Oulu City Pictures, Oulu has a gorgeous history of sea faring and tar production industry. Now those "good old times" are gone and belong to the past, but luckily there are some landmarks, traditions and spirit left of our sea history.

One remainder of our sea trading history is the sea connection itself, enabling relatively large sailing ships to visit Oulu harbor. There are some great restored ships sailing along Gulf of Botnia, and you can see many different type ships docked here in summer time.

There are also other sea towns next to the Gulf of Botnia. Pietarsaari has also long history of sailing, and as a proof of it they have own sailing ship (photos on right and below). It has also visited Oulu couple of times, once getting a bottom contact near city harbor.

This and other sailing ships have many interesting details. There are some craftsmanship which you rarely see nowadays, for example all those ropes and tackle gears. It is nice to know that even these modern days somebody still keeps up knowledge over ancient seamanship.

People in Oulu city theater arranged a some great performance last summer. The subject was Toivo ship , one of the most famous sailing ship of Oulu seafarer history. This theatrical event got quite large scale framework, because a replica of Toivo ship (photo on right) was build for a stage!

Well, the ship was more like a symbolic replica of real Toivo, not any seaworthy ship, but you can still image actors and actresses on long deck some playing some legendary scenes of historic events that have actually happened years ago. Thousands of people saw that play, and I guess there will be same kind of sea-related plays and events arranged at next summer also.

On the photo the white replica of Toivo is arriving for a visit to city centre harbor (the actual play took a place elsewhere). There were some actress on deck singing traditional sailor songs, and the public greeted their arrival.

Few more photographs of a ship during it's visit in Oulu in summer of 2001

It is quite shame that I don't know too much about historical facts, and so far I haven't had any time to study history books and other documents. Maybe sometimes, hopefully sooner than my pension starts, I'll go to the library and study everything about Oulu and especially about these great sailing ships. Until then you have to settle for my photographs and brief stories.

For example this beauty is fully unknown for me, because when I took the photos I actually did not bother to stop and ask what was the name. I know, it is a basic rule to learn your subject, but so far I have neglected this too many times. If you happen to know about this sailing ship, please inform me.

Are you a fan of old fashioned ships?

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