Aboa Mare has published ‘Aboa Mare 200 år’ as a documentation of Finland’s oldest vocational training, master training in Turku.

The maritime training started in 1813, since then the academy has changed its name
often, but the training has been ongoing ever since.

The publication has more than 500 pages and presents many significant people such as teachers, students and principals from the entire period of the academy’s operation.

The reader is given an indication of how the maritime sector and training have been developed during the various phases of the academy.

The book also showcases the buildings where training has been held during the past 200 years, such as the observatory on Vartiovuori hill in Turku, where the maritime school operated for over 130 years.

The book was funded by Stiftelsen för Åbo Akademi and it was written by maritime journalist and Sjöfartstidningen magazine editor, Pär-Henrik Sjöström. The book was published on 12 January 2018, written in Swedish. The English edition will be published during spring 2018.

The book publishing event attracted many attendees from the maritime industry

The Shanty Singers choir started the event by singing songs from the sailboat era to some hundred attendees in Aboa Mare on 12 January 2018. After that, the current head of the Maritime Academy and Training Center, Per-Olof Karlsson, made a welcoming speech and the writer Pär-Henrik Sjöström and former rector Bo Gyllenberg were also given the floor.

The speeches showed that principals at any era have had to work hard to acquire sufficient funding for maritime training, such as when the first principal August Hannibal Hagelstam had ordered too many pencils for his students and he had to pay the excess from his own salary.

Since then, funding has grown despite difficult economic times. The academy is now doing well due to the external course offerings and simulator training, Sjöström explains.

Maritime training in Turku is nowadays marketed by Aboa Mare, which is known both in Finland and abroad. Now, Aboa Mare has more than 400 students and more than 1,700 course participants annually.

The academy is also active in many research and development projects.

Aboa Mare has trained a significant part of the masters in the Finnish merchant fleet

Many of the masters in the Finnish merchant fleet have been trained in the Turku maritime academy.

Students of the academy are sailing all over the world, and many sea captains that have graduated from the maritime academy have decided to become their own employers and found a shipping company.

Many are working on land, in harbours and for various authorities.