A couple of years ago I spotted a long, lean traditional Finnish rowing boat for sale online. It had been designed and built for bi-stroke racing with a rower on a sliding seat and a paddler using a single-bladed paddle in the stern. I had no experience in competitive rowing or even cruising under oars, but I fell in love with the boat and bought it. Its lines promised good speed and tracking, but it had been neglected and had some broken frames and split planks. During the following winter I restored it and added a second sliding seat for doubles rowing. We launched the boat in the spring, and call it TURBO.Finland is dotted and laced with thousands of lakes and waterways. The Saimaa area in the southeast is the country’s largest watershed with 9,300 miles of shoreline, more per square mile than anywhere else in the world. The 14,000 islands in the region add to the complexity of Finland’s vast Lakeland. In the past, rowing was the fastest way to get around Saimaa and many other watery inland parts of the country, and rowboats were essential to the traditional ways of life. Each region has its own native boat designs, with characteristics that have evolved over hundreds of years to suit local tastes and conditions. I had been spending my summers sailing all around the Baltic Sea and staying with my family in our summer place in the archipelago along the south coast, so the inland waterways and lakes weren’t familiar to me; I’d only seen them from a car window or through some occasional visits to friends or relatives with summer cottages. Now that I had a boat descended from Finland’s rich inland traditions, it was time to explore Saimaa. .
Roger Siebert
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Excellent father and son adventure
Great trip and good story! Thanks for taking the time to tell it, Mats.
Wow, what wonderful writing, you have a way of putting the reader right there in your boat. I enjoyed every word of it. Terrific pictures, too. I noted that your son had a thick book with him to read. How nice to see that. He seems to be all a man could hope for in a son. God bless you both.
Thank you for telling your story. It has inspired me to build the small boat I have been dreaming of for the past few years and to share some adventures with my sons.
Thank you for the comments and taking the time to read the story. Small-boat cruising can be really rewarding.
Small boat adventure story-telling at its best. And the young man you’ve raised is quite the able seaman already.