Projects

The Tallinn Cog

The Lootsi Cog

The very first project of FOG was a grand one, no less than a conservation of the wreck of a medieval cog ship. In fact, it's the very reason our company exists! No, that's not right. A company of our own has been a dream for a too long time to say that and something bound to happen eventually, for we do have special training and experience in preserving and displaying such things plus in general wise ideas about how to best utilize cultural heritage. Indeed, we do have a strong urge to do whatever it takes to preserve best bits of our cultural heritage, whatever they may be - For Our Generation! 

The Tallinn Cog, or the Peeter Cog, or Tivoli Cog, as it is also known, was merely the initiative for finally making it happen, for which we are very much indebted to the director Urmas Dreesen and archaeologist Priit Lätti of the Estonian Maritime Museum, who first contacted us in 2017. The thing was that a wreck of a medieval cog had been found in 2015 wet on a terrestrial site in the construction site not far from the KUMU art museum at Kadriorg park in beautiful Tallinn. The Estonian Heritage Agency, led by the archaeologist Maili Roio, had excavated the site upon discovery, after which the whole wreck had been transported to a temporary tent constructed outside the Lennusadam premises of the Estonian Maritime Museum. It was then up to the Maritime Museum to deal with it. What to do with this amazingly well-preserved wreck? And how to exhibit it?

That's about what was puzzling Urmas and Priit and others at the Estonian Maritime Museum and the very questions posed to us upon first contacts. We could only express our overwhelming enthusiasm about this unique find and special knowhow we possess in planning and managing a project, which would eventually results in displaying the conserved wreck in a significant exhibition constructed in a newly build hall in the Estonian Maritime Museum's old town premises within the Fat Margarita premises. 

So we were fortunate enough to enter into a contract for planning and managing the conservation project and subsequent display. All went well, and in November 2019 the newly renovated Fat Margaret premises of the Estonian Maritime museum opened with the ship standing proudly as the centerpiece of the exhibition.

After successfully conserving the Tallinn ship, we thought that that was it, for us with wrecks of medieval cog-ships. How could there ever be anything like that again? I mean how often you run across such a find, and a project? Once in a lifetime -kind of a situation surely!

Except that it wasn’t.

Spring 2022. Excavation site in Tallinn's harbor, just behind the D-terminal so familiar to Finns traveling between our capitals. There was a ship, partly excavated, partially exposed. And we were standing on it, getting goosebumps, of the familiarity of the experience. We knew those huge oak planks, that humongous maststep. That structure, those shapes. Riveting in between the planks, the iron fastenings keeping it all together, corroded but still there. The smell! Wet and ages old. The shapes! Fine sand covering everything.

We had seen this before, felt it. We know this type, and this kind of an excavation site.

Another ship, very well preserved. Medieval? Yes! Bigger than the previous one. So big it couldn't be moved in one piece as was done with the Kadriorg Cog but had to be cut in four pieces for the move to the Lennusadam premises of the Estonian Maritime Museum. All in all it’s some 25m long, 9m wide and at it’s highest about 6m.

So here we go again. We’re in, doing this once again, preserving this age-old structure, gently and wisely, with maximal accessibility in our minds, and sustainability as well. By the end of 2025, this one should be conserved as well to withstand museum conditions, ready to be exhibited to the people, to who it belongs, who can use it in various ways, learn from it and get inspired of the wisdom and skill still very visible and tangible within the preserved structures.

And while while we’re doing this, you are welcome to observe and participate even. So take a peak through the window in the tent in which the ship now rests outside the Lennusadam premises of Estonian Maritime Museum, and take part in one of the events to come, through which this conservation project is to be made accessible to people. You’re most welcome to see the conservation work, which is no secret nor hidden behind-the-scenes -stuff, but open and fascinating part of the long story of this wonder of a ship!

This website, particularly the blog section, is the place to follow how we proceed with this wonderful cooperation with the Estonian Maritime Museum. So please come aboard, dear reader!