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Museum tugboat Santtu
Museum tugboat Santtu is stationed in Reposaari and
belongs to the collections of the Satakunta Museum. It
is one of the 15 museum ships in Finland, six of which
are tugboats, and, like Santtu, four were built in the
19th century. It was built in 1894 at the Helsinki
shipyard, its previous names were Santahamina and Bomba,
and it is still in relatively good condition.
Builder, owner and tasks
S/s Bomba was almost 25 years old when it was first
mentioned in the official Finnish ship calendar of 1918
as a steel hulled steam vessel named Bombu. Its home
port and place of registration was Helsinki and its
owner was engineer Oskar Eklund.
The navy
The same year it was completed, Bomba was sold to the
Russian shore ordnance to be used as a carrier to
fortresses in the Gulf of Finland. When the Russians
left the country in 1918, when Finland gained her
independence, the Finnish government confiscated the
vessel and handed it over to the Finnish navy. The
vessel was renamed as s/s Santahamina, and it served as
a carrier between Helsinki and nearby naval bases.
Mikkelin puutavaraosakeyhtiö
The navy sold s/s Santahamina some time around the years
1924-1927, and the vessel appeared in the fleet of a
Saimaa-based lumber company named Mikkelin
Puutavaraosakeyhtiö. Because of the statute on steam
boilers of 1926, Santahamina's steam boiler also had to
be registered and inspected at regular intervals by the
authorities. In 1928, a steam boiler made at the
Savonlinna engineering works in 1924 was moved from a
steam freighter named Arvo to s/s Santahamina.
Werner Hacklin Oy
In 1938, the name of the vessel was changed from s/s
Santahamina to s/s Santtu when it was purchased by the
Pori-based Werner Hacklin Oy. Santtu served until the
1970s as a harbour craft in Reposaari and Mäntyluoto.
During the Winter War and the Continuation War it was
used as a civil vessel during the day but at night it
turned into a military patrol boat. During 1945-1948
Santtu was used for mine clearing by the defence forces.
The owner of the Hangon Hinaus Oy, Heimo Saarinen,
bought Santtu in 1971 and donated it in 1982 to the City
of Pori to be used as a museum ship.
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S/S Santtu
After a long stoppage (1931-1937) the vessel seems to
have been in rather poor condition, and it was
overhauled at the Reposaari Engineering Workshop. The
superstructures, deck, boards and dwelling quarters of
the fast connecting vessel were reworked. In the winter
of 1948 Santtu's steam boiler got a leak, and the vessel
received its first diesel engine, a second-hand
six-cylinder four-stroke engine made of cast iron, and
it was thus converted from a steam vessel into a motor
vessel. In the late 1950s, Santtu got a new German
six-cylinder four-stroke Mannheim diesel engine. During
its last years in Reposaari Santtu's hull was painted
green, its superstructure and navigation bridge yellow
and its smokestack black and white.
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