S/S "ARIADNE", Finland. Postcard

S/S ARIDNE

Postcard published by Postimuseo, Tampere, Nº 79 (1997). Reprint of a old postcard.

The S/S Ariadne was a passenger steamship owned by Suomen Vöyrylaiva Osakeyhtiö, which operated from 1914 to 1968. She was designed by shipbuilding engineer Hugo Lindfors and built at the Lindholmens Verkstads Ab shipyard in Gothenburg, Sweden. She had 128 class I, 58 class II and 54 class III cabin seats, and in addition there were 260 seats on deck, so a total of five hundred passengers could be embarked. The Ariadne began operating on the Helsinki - Tallinn - Stettin line on May 2, 1914. On August 4 of the same year, after the start of World War I, the Russian government seized the ship and moored it as a hospital ship in the port of Helsinki, where it remained until 1918, when the Russians left Finland. Starting in the spring of 1919, the Ariadne operated the Helsinki - Hanko - Stockholm route in the summer season and the Helsinki - Copenhagen - Hull route in the winter season before the ice arrived. In 1921 she resumed the Helsinki - Tallinn - Stettin line. She had the official status of a postal ship. After the outbreak of the Winter War, the Ariadne was stationed first at Uusikaupunki and later at the Swedish cities of Holmsund and Stockholm. In 1942-1943 the ship was leased to the German Navy and as a hospital ship she transported wounded soldiers to Germany. At the end of the Continuation War, in September 1944 she again became a hospital ship for Finnish soldiers. From June 1949 to 1967 the ship operated the Helsinki-Copenhagen route, and then the Helsinki-Tallinn and Turku-Stockholm routes. She was taken out of service in September 1968 and in July 1969 she was sold for scrapping.

Traveler's collection.