Kristinestad Maritime Museum

ONE MUSEUM,
TWO SITES.

Main exhibition, Salutorget 1
Open in the summer Tue-Sat  10:00-14:00

The main exhibition is situated on the attic floor of an Empire-style building next to the Market Square. The premises used to host the sailmaker’s workshop of the Wendelin shipping company. The visitor gets to explore seafaring life through the equipment and tools from old sailing ships, an old-style diving suit, ship portraits, photographs, sand exotic items from faraway countries.

The Sea Warehouse, Strandgatan 62
Open in the summer Tue-Sat 14:30-18:00

In the museum’s ’Sea Warehouse’, located 600 metres southwards at Strandgatan 62, various types of boats are on display. The exhibition is worth a visit also for the detailed miniature models of Kristinestad, the shipyards, the tar yeard and and steamship pier.

Open 15 June-15 August 2025

For group bookings and guided visits, please contact us in advance. Off-season, the museum is open on request and according to availability. Call +358 6 22 12 859 (mobile phone) or email us at info[at]kristinestadssjofartsmuseum.fi.

A FASCINATING HISTORY

Kristinestad is an old shipping and maritime centre dating back to the 17th century. The shipyards built stately ships, which sailed the seas of the world, The first vessels were simple ‘skutas’, later brigs and ships for the North Sea and the Mediterranean voyages of the 18th century, and finally frigates and barque ships, for sailing the world’s oceans. The sea provided the inhabitants with a livelihood through fishing and indirectly through trade. Cotton from America, salt, tobacco and sugar were unloaded in the town harbour, and tar and timber loaded in.

The period from the 1840s to the 1870s was the golden age of sailing ships. During this time, Kristinestad also developed into an important shipyard and harbour town. Kristinestad was once the starting point of numerous sailing trips to the world. Advertising posters from the turn of the 20th century testify to the lively emigration to America, and artefacts tell of tragic shipwrecks.

To the left, click to open a list of ships built in Kristinestad, or whose owners were based in town, post-1800. In Swedish only. 
(extract from Christer Norrvik, Stad under segel, 1999)

READING

There is quite a bit of research and literature on seafaring in Kristinestad and the surrounding region, not least the works written by the late Christer Norrvik, a long-standing chair of our association. Some of these can be purchased at the museum. In Swedish and Finnish only.

- Gullberg, Kurt: Skeppsbyggarland: skeppsbyggeri och sjöfart i Sydösterbotten under 1800-talet (2014)
- Norrvik, Christer: Alma (1995)
- Norrvik, Christer: Briggen Carl-Gustaf: 1875-1889 : under österbottniska segel i ångans tidevarv (1981)
- Norrvik, Christer: Purjeiden kaupunki: Kristiinankaupungin merenkulku 1809 jälkeen (1999)

- Norrvik, Christer: Stad under segel: Kristinestads sjöfart efter 1809 (1999)
- Norrvik, Christer: Under sydbottniska segel (1988)
- Silfverberg, Hans G.: Viktor och Alma: krönika om sjömannen och lanthandlaren Viktor Sjöholms liv och leverne (1876-1944)

- Suominen, Petri: Wendelinit ja Kristiinankaupungin suuruuden vuodet (2022)