This is a tale of a small and old coastal vessel, the 516 ton capacity steamer "Vohi". I was serving on her as the Chief Officer at the time when she was forced to wander in the Baltic Sea in a manner that caused a fair amount of anxiety to her officers and crew.
It was 1939. A few months earlier war had broken out in Europe. The southern coast of the Baltic Sea belonged to one of the warring nations, the Germans, while the other extremities of the briney waters were within neutral territories, those of Sweden and the Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Commercial sea traffic was conducted mainly between the ports of the neutral countries. Some of the cargoes at that time were, nevertheless, militarily so sensitive that the vessels carrying them had to keep away from German patrol boats, who regarded these as indisputable war contraband.
Toward the end of that year, the "Vohi" had loaded a cargo of plywood in Tallinn for delivery at Gothenburg, in Sweden. It was commonly known that the eventual destination of the plywood was the United Kingdom, and as such, war contraband in the eyes of the Germans. If they had then captured the ship, we, as blockade runners, would have been sitting for month at some German naval base.
The freight rates for such cargoes and increased wages for the crew were very attractive, and furthermore, the risks were irresistibly exciting. We sneaked our way along the Estonian coast between islands and in narrows, and among shoals and reefs; there we could do so with impunity, but only in the daylight hours because of the risk of being stranded. Our movements were so timed that the passage over the open stretch of the Baltic Sea would be negotiated in darkness. With our slow speed, we needed the whole night to arrive close to the island of Gotland near the Swedish coast. Fortunately, nights in these latitudes are long in the month of December. Another jump, between the islands of Gotland and Oland, was also made in darkness. The rest of the voyage to our destination was made almost exclusively within the three mile zone of Swedish territorial waters, where there was no need to elude the German patrols.
After discharging the cargo of plywood, the little steamer loaded, at Copenhagen, a partical cargo of general merchandise for Tallinn. We sailed from the Danish port on a brisk January morning in 1940. A moderate northerly breeze was blowing and the air was chilly. Shortly after leaving port, we heard a report on ice conditions in adjacent waters by Swedish radio. What concerned us the most was the warning that the Gulf of Finland was completely frozen over. This was a major obstacle — we knew that we had to get into the Gulf of Finland in order to reach Tallinn. Our hopes rose, when a few hours later, we managed to catch the Estonian Marine Administration radio broadcast, which advised that the icebreaker "Suur Tõll" would be waiting for ships bound for Tallinn in the vicinity of Ristna lighthouse at the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. We only needed to arrive at the meeting place on time. The little "Vohi" was puffing smoke from her funnel and bravely pushing on at her top speed through the chilly waters along the Swedish coast. She could not afford to miss the help of the icebreaker. Another local radio report announced that below-freezing temperatures and young ice were detected as far south as the island of Oland. It appeared that a wide tract of extremely cold air was slowly creeping southward. We knew only later that this was the beginning of the infamous record-cold winter of 1939/40 in northwestern Europe.
We had been steaming for three days since leaving Copenhagen; another four days would be needed to reach Tallinn if we could continue our voyage without interruption. Up until now, we had not encountered ice, although the air temperature was very low — 15 degrees below freezing on the centigrade scale. Then, on the afternoon of the same day, we sighted ahead of us a greyish white strip on the horizon. It looked different from the surface of the sea behind us, in the southerly direction. As we edged closer to the pale coloured strip of water, we could recognize the flat, freshly-formed accumulation of ice crystals. It covered the whole expanse of our view, carving the distant sky-line from north to east. There was no sign of any other ship, although visibility was good. Judging by the distance travelled, we ought to have been fairly close to the position where the icebreaker was expected to meet the incoming ships. The ice sheet seemed to be thin and brittle on the edges and looked penetrable. There was no doubt however, that it would be heavier further into the Gulf of Finland. Considering the age of our ship and the weakness of her engines, we could not expect to force the ice floes and remain unhurt by their pressure. The decision was made not to continue our homeward journey.
Hoping that some of the harbours on the Latvian coast would still be ice-free, we altered the course of the vessel and began steaming in a southerly direction. Albeit, optimistically, we expected this open water to reach as far as the Latvian coast. Proceeding in this direction, though, we were moving nearer to the waters under German control. But this time we had no guilty conscience — the merchandise presently in our cargo holds was genuinely neutral.
The weather was clear and there was almost no wind. Darkness descended. Stars were twinkling brilliantly in the partially clouded sky and the air was bitingly cold. We maintained our course and speed throughout the night without seeing any other ship or patches of ice. The next morning was clear and sunny. The calm weather persisted and the absolute silence around us was disturbed only by mechanical noises from our engine-room. About ten o'clock we met another layer of ice. This uniform covering stretched ahead of us and to our left, similar to the one that we had confronted on the previous day. This, too, seemed to reach as far as the visible horizon. Our straining eyes unsuccessfully sought signs of the Latvian coast. We had no knowledge of our exact position — unpredictable currents could have imperceptibly drifted us in any direction. The sickening, shimmering ice seemed to totally embrace the southern and eastern ranges. We had to accept that there was no alternative other than turning back to the southern coast of Sweden — to approach the very same localities that we had passed in the early part of our voyage. From the beginning, we had been steaming along the diagonal length of the Baltic Sea in a northeasterly direction. Then, when we first met ice, we went down on a southerly course. Now, we were forced to proceed along the third leg of the triangle, on a west-south-westerly course.
Apart from these retrospective considerations, we had now to tackle some mundane problems. Since the tiny coaster was not provided with equipment for astronomical position finding, we were not sure of our position in this featureless void. The distance to the Swedish coast was about 250 miles, which would take us some 35 to 40 hours to cover. Our fuel supply would barely be adequate for such a distance, and would certainly leave nothing to spare if we underestimated the distance. This meant that we would need immediate replenishment when making a landfall; we also knew that not all small harbours were provided with bunkering facilities. These and other problems were pestering our minds as we set the course of the vessel at 245 degrees on the compass. We regarded this direction as the safest to keep us clear of the German minefields.
The weather had so far been favourable, but was beginning to show signs of changeing. Dark clouds were gathering from the east and before long covered the entire sky as the east-north-east wind grew stronger. At dusk, the first snow flakes began gamboling in the gusty wind and soon thickened into a steady snowfall. Within a few hours, a violent snowstorm besieged us. The sea became rough and gradually built up an offensively heavy swell. We were fortunate in that the storm and pounding waves assaulted us from the stern; they caused the ship to roll heavily, but enabled us to hold her on course.
The long winter night passed slowly. By the next morning the wind had, however, abated slightly, but the high waves stubbornly persisted. The snowfall was lighter and visibility had somewhat improved. There was no sign of life, not even seabirds, within the half mile perimeter that our eyes could penetrate in the murkiness. As a precaution, we decided to conserve the scant supply of coal on board by reducing the speed of the engines. All that day and the following night, the little ship was tossed and bumped by the short and precipituous waves of the Baltic Sea, but we determinedly kept her on course. Our overstrained eyes maintained an extremely sharp lookout for any shore-line that might come into sight which, due to the uncertainty of our position, could come from ahead or from either side. These efforts were none-the-less in vain. By the time the next morning dawned, we had sighted nothing but snow and grey waters within the restricted field of our vision. The wind had moderated but a slight snowfall continued. Visibility was now about one mile, which substantially reduced the danger of accidentally running aground. Yet, a gnawing trepidation remained with respect to our position relative to the menacing minefield. As far as we knew, we could have been in the middle of it. Furthermore, the engineers gave the disquieting news that the coal in the bunkers would last no longer than another eight hours of steaming.
It is said that when the need is the greatest, help is the nearest. This seemed to hold true in our case: suddenly, through the light snowfall, we sighted the familiar contours of the ferryboat that maintained a regular service between Sweden and the Danish island of Bornholm. We had seen this vessel on numerous occasions plying on her unalterable route, and so knew where she was bound. Adjustments to our course were immediately made and, an hour later, we arrived at the entrance of the small Swedish port of Ystad. By that time our bunkers contained coal for only two more hours of steaming.
We had now completed this bizarre triangular voyage and were almost as far from our ultimate destination as at the time when we sailed from Copenhagen one week earlier.
Having replenished our fuel supply, food and water, we made, without hesitation, another attempt to reach Tallinn. We had to make haste, as the peak of the harsh winter was still ahead of us and the ice conditions could only get worse. We again met ice in the Baltic Sea but the powerful icebreaker was waiting for us as arranged. It pulled our harassed little coaster through the everthickening ice and guided us to a delayed, but a highly welcome landfall at our homeport.
