Boilers:	Two coal-fired boilers and one auxiliary boiler
Engine:	Triple-expansion steam engine, 1500 ihp

Apu was a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 state-owned steam-powered icebreaker

Icebreaker

An icebreaker is a special-purpose ship or boat designed to move and navigate through ice-covered waters. Although the term usually refers to ice-breaking ships, it may also refer to smaller vessels .For a ship to be considered an icebreaker, it requires three traits most...

 built by Howaldtswerke

Howaldtswerke

Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft is a German shipbuilding company, headquartered in Kiel. In 2009 it was the largest shipyard in Germany and has more than 2,400 employees. It has been part of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems owned by ThyssenKrupp, since 2005...

 in Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, in 1899. Initially owned by a private shipping company founded by shipowners from the Finnish city of Turku

Turku

Turku is a city situated on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River. It is located in the region of Finland Proper. It is believed that Turku came into existence during the end of the 13th century which makes it the oldest city in Finland...

 and known as Avance, she was later purchased by the Finnish Board of Navigation and her name was translated into Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

. The Apu remained in service until 1959, when she was replaced by the new diesel-electric Murtaja.

Construction

When the winter navigation committee appointed by the Senate of Finland

Senate of Finland

The Senate of Finland combined the functions of cabinet and supreme court in the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1816 to 1917 and in the independent Republic of Finland from 1917 to 1918....

 in 1895 decided that the state-owned icebreakers would assist merchant ships only to the port of Hanko during the winter, the shipowners from Turku did not lose their faith in year-round traffic to their hometown. In 1898 they founded a joint shipping company, Isbrytare Aktiebolaget Avance (Icebreaker Company Avance), to order and maintain an icebreaker that would be used to maintain year-round traffic to the port of Turku. The new company was partially funded by the city and also received a long-term interest-free loan from the state. With total assets of 650,000 Finnish markkas (FIM) the company ordered a new icebreaker, designed by Swedish engineer C. Bagge, from the Howaldtswerke shipyard in Kiel, Germany. The total cost of the new vessel, christened Avance, was FIM 616,000 and in many respects she resembled the first state-owned icebreaker, the Murtaja

Finnish icebreaker Murtaja (1890)

Murtaja was a Finnish state-owned steam-powered icebreaker. Built in 1890 by Bergsunds Mekaniska Verkstads AB in Stockholm, Sweden, she was the first state-owned icebreaker of Finland and one of the first purpose-built icebreakers in the world...

. She was completed and delivered to owners in February 1899.

Career

The main task of the Avance was to assist ships between Turku and Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

 although scheduled year-round shipping service to the German city of Lübeck

Lübeck

The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...

 was launched during her first year in operation and she was often needed also in the southern shipping lane passing the island of Utö

Utö, Finland

Utö is a small island in the Archipelago Sea in the Baltic sea and belongs to Väståboland municipality. It is the southernmost year-round inhabited island in Finland. On the island there's a lighthouse, pilot station, a small guest harbour, a shop and a post office. Due to the remoteness of the...

. She was found out to be suitable for icebreaking in the sheltered waters within the archipelago, but her wheelhouse had to be made higher shortly after entering service to improve visibility astern.

The Avance was offered to the city of Stockholm in 1907, but the Swedish buyers decided that she was too expensive and broke off the deal. Maintaining the icebreaker turned out to be more expensive than what was anticipated, and in 1909 the city of Turku purchased the majority of the shipping company's shares.

In August 1914 Russia

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

 joined the First World War and the Finnish icebreakers were placed under the command of the Baltic Fleet

Baltic Fleet

The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...

 of the Imperial Russian Navy

Imperial Russian Navy

The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...

. The Avance was confiscated and used to transport troops and supplies to coastal forts at the Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...

. Her name was written on the side in Cyrillic alphabet

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

 as Авансь.

When Finland declared independence on 6 December 1917, the Avance was still under Russian control. After a failed attempt to recapture her in early 1918 she was taken to St. Petersburg by the retreating Russian revolutionaries. The Russians returned her in poor condition in 1922 after Wäinämöinen and Ilmarinen, two former Russian icebreakers captured by the White Guard

White Guard (Finland)

The White Guard was a voluntary militia that emerged victorious over the socialist Red Guard as part of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War of 1918...

 during the civil war

Finnish Civil War

The Finnish Civil War was a part of the national, political and social turmoil caused by World War I in Europe. The Civil War concerned control and leadership of The Grand Duchy of Finland as it achieved independence from Russia after the October Revolution in Petrograd...

 in 1918, had been returned to their previous owners. Unable to pay for the extensive repairs, the shipping company sold the Avance to the Board of Navigation for FIM 1.58 million. She was repaired at the Crichton-Vulcan

Crichton-Vulcan

Crichton-Vulcan is an abandoned shipyard in Turku, Finland that once formed the cornerstone of the Finnish shipbuilding industry. The shipyard is best known for the World War II coastal defence ships and submarines it produced....

 shipyard, who was paid FIM 1.25 million for the work, and on 15 December 1923 her name was translated to Apu, meaning "assistance" in Finnish.

After refit the Apu resumed her duties on the Archipelago Sea

Archipelago Sea

Archipelago Sea is a part of the Baltic Sea between the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Åland, within Finnish territorial waters...

 as a state-owned icebreaker and remained in service through the Second World War until 1959 even though during her last years in service her assistance in the Archipelago Sea

Archipelago Sea

Archipelago Sea is a part of the Baltic Sea between the Gulf of Bothnia, the Gulf of Finland and the Sea of Åland, within Finnish territorial waters...

 was described being "more of a moral nature". The 60-year-old icebreaker was decommissioned on 7 April 1959 and broken up shortly afterwards. She was replaced by the second Karhu class icebreaker, Murtaja.

In 1969 a new diesel-electric icebreaker was named Apu after the smallest state-owned icebreaker of Finland. The new icebreaker was more than five times as big as the old one by displacement and had almost eight times as much power in her four propellers.

Technical details

The Avance was 43.2 metres (141.73 ft) long overall and 42 metres (137.8 ft) at the waterline

Waterline length

The Waterline length is a measurement of ships and boats. The term denotes the length of the vessel at the point where it sits in the water. It excludes the total length of the boat, such as features that are out of the water...

. Her moulded breadth was 10.85 metres (35.6 ft) and breadth at the waterline slightly smaller, 10.35 metres (33.96 ft). The draught of the icebreaker at maximum displacement, 900 tons, was 5.1 metres (16.73 ft) on even keel.

The ship was powered by a 1,500 ihp triple-expansion steam engine driving a single propeller in the stern and giving the Avance a maximum speed of 13.5 knots (7.3 m/s) in open water. She had two coal-fired boilers and a smaller auxiliary boiler, all in a single engine room amidships. Her stores could hold 100 tons of coal, which was fed to the boilers at a rate of 1.3 to 1.8 tons per hour when the ship was breaking ice. Like other icebreakers of her time, she was also equipped with sails which, while rarely used, remained in the inventory until the 1920s.

In many ways the Avance resembled the first state-owned icebreaker of Finland, the Murtaja, although her bow was of improved Swedish design which increased her icebreaking capability. The angle of the stem, the first part of the ship to encounter and break the ice, was 22 degrees. Still, she was of the same outdated European design as the Murtaja and thus had similar problems in difficult ice conditions. Her coal stores were also located too far in the front, resulting in an unfavourable trim at full load. Despite her shortcomings the Avance was found out to be suitable for service within the archipelago.