Suomigracht

This ship is owned by Spliethoff, the company where I started 33 years ago. It is a very large company now with an awful lot of ships. All the names of these vessels end with 'gracht'. It means Canal in a city. Spliethoff's homeport is Amsterdam, but there are more Spliethoff ships than Amsterdam Canals. Suomi is Finnish for Finland, and Spliethoff has a very long tradition of carrying Finnish products like timber and paper all over the world. On her Portside aft you can see the Free Fall Lifeboat, a design to disembark the complete crew in case of an emergency in a safe and very fast way. All crew members board the lifeboat, strap themselves and then the safety pin is released and the boat falls down and away from the vessel. You have to be trained in this, it is pretty high and the impact on the water is considerable.