Estonian Maritime Museum orders new Latvian-built research vessel

The Estonian Maritime Museum has signed a contract with Latvian shipbuilder Invessel to build a new research vessel for about one million euros, ERR reported.

The catamaran will be the first vessel built specifically to meet the museum’s needs. It will have a spacious aft deck for diving work and a crane. Its keel is expected to be laid in February, and the vessel is due to be completed in 2028.

The museum will fund the project from its own budget, board member Urmas Dresen said, adding that no grant funds were being used. The museum will hold a competition to choose the vessel’s name once it is finished.

The new vessel will replace Mare, which served the museum from 1982. Mare has been on display at a Lennusadam pier since 2018. In August 2005, its captain, Vello Mäss, took Estonian divers to the wreck of a Copterline Sikorsky helicopter that crashed into the sea near Aegna.

Dresen said 2028 will mark 50 years of the museum’s underwater archaeology work.