Development
The VMV-boats were designed by dipl.eng. Jaakko Rahola of the Finnish Navy. The design was good, giving the boats excellent sea-going qualities, fast speed and a light construction, and thanks to their wooden hull, resistance to magnetic mines. The boats only weighed about 30 tons, their length were between 20 and 25 meters. The standard armament consisted of one 20 mm automatic cannon, although they could be armed with wide variety of weapons depending of the requirements. The first boat was ordered in December 1929 from U. Suortin Veneveistämö in Helsinki. However, construction of this boat was delayed, and two boats that had been ordered from Germany were ready before the first Finnish one. The following two boats were ordered in January 1931 from Uudenkaupungin Veneveistämö and they were ready by December, the same year. Another order was then placed for one boat from Turun Veneveistämö and it was ready by 1932. A further ten boats were ordered in 1934 from Turun Veneveistämö. These were ready by 1935.
VMV 1–7 were equipped with gasoline engines, and VMV 8–17 had diesel engines. VMV 3 and VMV 7 were destroyed before the war, the former due to an engine fire in 1931, and the latter due to an explosion in 1933.
The only remaining VMV-boat, number 11, is today preserved at the Kotka Maritime Museum in its original, and elegant outfit of the 1930s.
Read more about this topic: VMV Class Patrol Boat
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