THE FINNISH LINE
As anyone who has been to or seen photos of the Finnish Wooden Boat Show in Kotka knows, Finland is awash with beautiful wooden boats. So it must take a certain courage to set up, in your mid-40s, as a builder of wooden boats in such a crowded market place. But Mats Vuorenjuuri had reason to believe he might have a slightly different take on Finland’s national pastime.
“There are many people building small traditional wooden boats in Finland – there is a natural demand because we are so used to having a wooden boat on the lakeside,” he says. “But I’m interested in combining modern technology with traditional designs, and there are not so many building professionally in glued plywood construction. So I thought it was a small slot for me.”
Mats was brought up around boats, firstly on his parents’ holiday island in the Finnish archipelago – in those days,. He even joined the ship during her maiden voyage to the Caribbean and sailed back with her across the Atlantic in 1993.
