Obviously as Wilhelmine was built in 1953 and sailed 30+ years under German flag in Europe before she was bought to Finland in the 80's a lot had time to happen to the people that sailed her and to Wilhelmine herself.
Waalhafen 1970's, courtesy of Shipnostalgia by "oktoon"
Originally she was launched with a tdw of 440t and then extended in 1961 to 550tdw, which was the size she was until the end.
Courtesy of Wikipedia
One interesting tidbit from her German era was that the Mate eventually married the daughter of Captain Theodor Oltmann. This is testimony to how close knit the life onboard was back then as a livelihood and lifestyle or perhaps the Mate played safe.
Still the offspring of the Oltmann's remember Wilhelmine as one comments on an article in LinkedIn:
On 27th June 1985 according to NY Times she collided with a west German submarine just off Kiel canal:
Courtesy of NYTimes
Courtesy of LATimes
Surprisingly the accommodation survived almost untouched but as time went by she lost her derricks, the winches for them, the original wooden lifeboat, the horn, the standard compass on the monkey island, her Deutz main engine and other loose bits and pieces as she changed owners.
Below are pictures courtesy of Jan Rautawaara who took time to dig in his archives when he was a deckhand onboard in late 90's as well as he visited maritime museums in Wischafen and sent pictures from there. They are all below in no particular order and I let the pictures speak for themselves.
German tonnage cert
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