Nr 7 Naantali’s old port

The sea and the port have always been important to Naantali. The convent and the town were founded on the seafront in the 1400s based on the rules governing the construction of the convent on one hand and trade links on the other. People and goods were easier to move by sea than by land.

Thanks to privileges granted by the king, towns were permitted to engage in foreign trade. The foreign cities Naantali’s burghers traded with in the 1500s included at least Tallinn, Danzig, Lübeck and Königsberg. The town also had commercial links with Stockholm and Ostrobothnia. To Stockholm, the town exported livestock, salted butter, meat, footwear, beer and socks. Imports coming back consisted of salt, iron, fabrics, wine and grain during poor harvests.

Naantali’s harbour, today the guest harbour, was known as an excellent harbour in the 1700s, even better than Turku’s. The harbour was 6–8 fathoms deep, more than ten metres.

In the early 1890s, there was regular ferry traffic between Naantali and other Finnish port cities, reaching as far as Vyborg and Vaasa. The ferry traffic reached its peak before the First World War, with up to 33 steam ships departing Naantali on a daily basis. Transport was heavily reliant on ships until the late 1920s, after which they were out-competed by coaches and trains.

Caption 1: Trade on the waterfront in the 1920s.

Caption 2: Steamships Vehmassalmi and Delet moored in port.