Beautiful boats and coast guard equipment
In the Boat Hall you can admire boats from the collections of the Maritime Museum of Finland and the Kymenlaakso Museum. They have been used for racing and leisure cruising, military and coast guard operations, fishing and rescuing.
The centre stage in Boat Hall is taken by Thomas Johanson’s and Jyrki Järvi’s gold-winning 49eR class sailboat from the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. The boat belongs to the collections of the Maritime Museum of Finland. Older Olympic history is represented by a small Olympic dinghy (1928) and an Australian rowing eight from the Helsinki 1952 Summer Olympics.
The streamlined speedboat from the 1930s competed successfully in speed racing, and the Kello 1 boat, which was built in the 1950s, was the trailblazer in metal boats. The small wooden Victoria boat reminds us of Tove Jansson, artist and writer, who travelled to her summer cottage at Klovharu by Victoria for nearly thirty years.
Traditional boat building skills in Kymenlaakso are represented, for example, by the Eeva boat from Summa village, the grandpa’s boat and the fishing boat from Tytärsaari. The Maija deck saloon boat is a unique example of boatbuilding in Vehkalahti preserved in her original form.
The Coast Guard Museum, built in cooperation between the Kymenlaakso Museum and the Finnish Border Guard, sheds light on the work of coast guards from the 1930s to the present day. The Coast Guard Museum is closed at the moment, and the newly revamped exhibition will open on 11 April 2025, marking the 95th anniversary of the coast guard. However, even the exhibition is closed the public can admire historic aircraft and vessels that supported coast guards from the air and sea, namely the Sääski II and DHC-2 Beaver surveillance aircraft and the VMV 11 patrol boat.
