Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Frontispiece
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Tribute on the Occasion of his Forthcoming Retirement as Professor of Maritime History at the University of Helsinki”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Man of the Sea”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen and the Development of Maritime Economic History”
- “Finnish Sailors, 1750-1870”
- “Finnish and International Maritime Labour in the Age of Sail: Was There a Market?”
- “Five Years before the Mast: Observations on the Conditions of Maritime Labour in Finland and Elsewhere”
- “The Maritime Labour Market: Skill and Experience as Factors of Demand and Supply”
- “Owners and Masters: Management and Managerial Skills in the Finnish Ocean-Going Merchant Fleet, c. 1840-1880”
- “From Low-Cost to High-Cost Shipping: Finnish Maritime Labour Costs after the Second World War”
- “The Modernization of Finnish Coastal Shipping and Railway Competition c. 1830-1913”
- “British Timber Imports and Finnish Shipping 1860-1910”
- “Baltic Timber-Trade under Sail: An Example of the Persistence of Old Techniques”
- “Coal and Canvas: Aspects of the Competition between Steam and Sail, c. 1870-1914”
- “Dutch Shipping and the Swedish Navigation Act (1724). A Case Study”
- “Seamen Ashore: Port Visits of Late Nineteenth-Century Finnish Sailors”
- “Wreck-plundering by East Finnish Coastal People - Criminal Tradition or Popular Culture?”
- “From Days and Knots to Pounds and Dollars: Some Problems in the Study of the Economics of Late Nineteenth Century Merchant Shipping”
- “Tons and Tonnages: Ship Measurement and Shipping Statistics, c. 1870-1980”
- “International Freight Markets in the 1830s and 1840s: The Experience of a Major Finnish Shipowner”
- “Shrinking the World: Improvements in the Speed of Information Transmission, c. 1820-1870”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Maritime Bibliography”
“Finnish Sailors, 1750-1870”
- Frontmatter
- Frontispiece
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Tribute on the Occasion of his Forthcoming Retirement as Professor of Maritime History at the University of Helsinki”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Man of the Sea”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen and the Development of Maritime Economic History”
- “Finnish Sailors, 1750-1870”
- “Finnish and International Maritime Labour in the Age of Sail: Was There a Market?”
- “Five Years before the Mast: Observations on the Conditions of Maritime Labour in Finland and Elsewhere”
- “The Maritime Labour Market: Skill and Experience as Factors of Demand and Supply”
- “Owners and Masters: Management and Managerial Skills in the Finnish Ocean-Going Merchant Fleet, c. 1840-1880”
- “From Low-Cost to High-Cost Shipping: Finnish Maritime Labour Costs after the Second World War”
- “The Modernization of Finnish Coastal Shipping and Railway Competition c. 1830-1913”
- “British Timber Imports and Finnish Shipping 1860-1910”
- “Baltic Timber-Trade under Sail: An Example of the Persistence of Old Techniques”
- “Coal and Canvas: Aspects of the Competition between Steam and Sail, c. 1870-1914”
- “Dutch Shipping and the Swedish Navigation Act (1724). A Case Study”
- “Seamen Ashore: Port Visits of Late Nineteenth-Century Finnish Sailors”
- “Wreck-plundering by East Finnish Coastal People - Criminal Tradition or Popular Culture?”
- “From Days and Knots to Pounds and Dollars: Some Problems in the Study of the Economics of Late Nineteenth Century Merchant Shipping”
- “Tons and Tonnages: Ship Measurement and Shipping Statistics, c. 1870-1980”
- “International Freight Markets in the 1830s and 1840s: The Experience of a Major Finnish Shipowner”
- “Shrinking the World: Improvements in the Speed of Information Transmission, c. 1820-1870”
- “Yrjö Kaukiainen: A Maritime Bibliography”
Summary
Introduction
In this contribution I will focus mainly on the period 1750-1870. This is due to two factors. First, Finnish vessels engaged in little besides coastal and Baltic navigation before the mid-eighteenth century. Second, there is little data on the manning of other than naval vessels before the 1780s. These features are also clearly reflected in the existing literature. While there are a fair number of articles - including ethnological studies - on sailors and maritime labour in the nineteenth century, little has been written about earlier periods. Some scattered data can be found in histories of coastal towns, but the bulk is far from impressive.
Finnish Shipping and the Demand for Maritime Labour before 1700
In the Middle Ages, Finnish shipping was confined to the Baltic. Although the Hanseatic League dominated trade, there were some active Finnish shipowners. When the League declined, Finnish coastal towns began to increase their maritime trade during the reign of Gustav Vasa. Still, by 1560 there were only about thirty vessels large enough to sail across the Baltic to North German and Danish ports, while the number of small coasters, used on voyages to Sweden and Estonia, may have amounted to seventy or eighty. Even in the former category, the vessels were small, carrying only about fifty tons on average, and the latter group obviously included many craft only marginally larger than fishing boats. It is thus quite clear that manning such a fleet did not require large numbers of sailors - a fair guess might be close to five hundred.
In addition, peasants and other coastal dwellers carried on shipping across the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. According to customs records, the number of Finnish “peasant vessels” visiting Tallinn and other Estonian ports, Stockholm and ports on Lake Mälaren, may have amounted to 350-400. Their trade, however, consisted mainly of the simple barter of dried or salted fish for grain for local consumption. This was a trade using small boats that did not involve large numbers of real sailors. Still, as a “nursery” for sailors for foreigngoing vessels, “peasant shipping” had an interesting, if little known, role.
During the first decades of the seventeenth century, Finland developed into an important producer of tar: by 1640, it had become the leading producer in the Baltic.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Sail and SteamSelected Maritime Writings of Yrjö Kaukiainen, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2004