Gustaf Erikson

Who is Gustaf Erikson?

Gustaf Erikson was a shipowner born in Lumparland, Åland, who went to sea as a boy and rose from cabin hand to ship's captain before settling in Mariehamn to build a shipping company. From the 1910s through the 1940s he assembled the largest and most famous fleet of ocean-going commercial sailing ships of the twentieth century, at a time when most of the world's merchant fleets had already switched to steam and diesel power. His windjammers, including the celebrated four-masted barque Pommern, competed profitably in the long-distance grain trade between Australia and Europe, participating in the famous "grain races" that captured international attention as the last great era of commercial sail. Erikson kept his fleet economically viable through careful, frugal management even as sailing ships elsewhere disappeared. After his death the Pommern was preserved and now serves as a floating museum ship in Mariehamn harbor, a centerpiece of Åland's maritime identity. Erikson is remembered as the man who kept commercial sail alive longer than anywhere else in the world.

Sources: Ålands Sjöfartsmuseum (Åland Maritime Museum), Gustaf Erikson fleet archives · Basil Lubbock, The Last of the Windjammers (1927/1929) · Uppslagsverket Finland, entry "Erikson, Gustaf"