Bureau Veritas:
Proud history as leading classification society in Finland
“M
arine industry is trying to look forward all the time”,
observes Olli Kaljala, Country Chief Executive of
Bureau Veritas Finland.
“More and more, we are seeing an energy-efficient future with strengthening environmental demands,” says Kaljala.
“Sometimes it is also good to look back to history where
there are milestones which changed the face of maritime.
Among them, there are technical solutions which are built
and maintained according to international rules and regulations based for safety.”
Bureau Veritas has a long tradition to drawn upon, with
operations in Northern Baltic Sea area having been largely coordinated from Finland which was once a part of Russia but
at the same time autonomous country.
“It was the time of wooden ships. In Finland, in particular in Kristinestad in the second half of the 19th century, a large number of wooden sailing ships were classed by
Bureau Veritas.”
SIX OFFICES IN THE NORTH
Today, the Bureau Veritas District Finland – Baltic Countries
includes six offices: Helsinki, Turku, Tallinn, Riga, Klaipeda
and Vilnius.
Bureau Veritas was established in Finland at an early
stage. The society opened its first agency, with one surveyor in Turku, in 1858. In the 1870’s there were already six surveyors in Finland, all of whom were not, however, permanent
full time staff members. Their area of activity reached from
Oulu in the North, along the Finnish coast all the way to Viborg, including Åland.
At that time, new sailing ships were increasingly classed,
and shipbuilding flourished on the west coast, from Rauma north up to Oulu. Bureau Veritas was, in this context, in
the leading position among classification societies in Finland.
Gradually, ships started to be built from steel. The Bureau
Veritas rules followed the development and the surveyors were
trained in the new technology. After the WW II, the activities
continued through different agencies until Bureau Veritas’
branch office was set up in Helsinki in 1984.
RISTO VALKEAPÄÄ
Olli Kaljala with historic documents in the Helsinki office. For
example, the Russian icebreaker Yermak (delivered in 1899), was
classed by Bureau Veritas.
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