Föri is a

cable ferry A cable ferry (including the terms chain ferry, swing ferry, floating bridge, or punt) is a ferry that is guided (and in many cases propelled) across a river or large body of water by cables connected to both shores. Early cable ferries often ...

running across the River Aura in

Turku Turku ( ; ; sv, Åbo, ) is a city and former capital on the southwest coast of Finland at the mouth of the Aura River, in the region of Finland Proper (''Varsinais-Suomi'') and the former Turku and Pori Province (''Turun ja Porin lääni''; ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

. The ferry was completed in 1903, and it is the oldest vehicle still in daily operation in Finland. Föri is also the only municipally owned ferry in Finland. The name "Föri" is derived either from the

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

word "färja", or from the English word "ferry". If the river freezes over and the ice is thicker than 30 cm, the ferry is replaced by an ice bridge.

History

Föri was built at the Ab Vulcan in 1903 to suit the needs of the employees at the factory in

on the shore of the River Aura. The ferry was originally driven by

steam engines A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tr ...

fed from a woodfired boiler. In 1955 the steam engines were replaced by

diesel engines The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...

, the crossing time was 1.5 minutes.YLE news article on 110 year old Föri including rare video of chain drive
YLE. The ferry was operated by the City of Turku till 2008, when the operation was outsourced to

West Coast Seaservices West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...

. In 2015 city authorities announced that the two diesel engines powering the Föri would be replaced by electric motors. The old engines consumed 7500–8000 litres of fuel each year, with the average speed of ~2 km/h. According to the manufacturer Visedo Oy, the new electric engines should consume around "three kilowatts of electricity per hour in summer and four in winter". The average speed will remain unchanged and the ferry will still have dual motors for redundancy. Each of the two engines consists of a DC/DC converter to increase the voltage from the batteries, and a permanent magnet motor drive to transform the electrical signal into mechanical energy. Both of the two motors can also be used simultaneously if more power is needed due to e.g. ice conditions. The new system is also eight tonnes lighter than the diesel engines and hydraulic motor it has replaced.Electrification of the Föri
Tutka. This retrofit was done by Mobimar Oy, and it took place in the spring of 2017.Electrification of the Föri
Turkulainen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Föri Tourist attractions in Turku Crichton-Vulcan Ships built in Turku 1903 ships Ferries of Finland Transport in Turku Cable ferries