Laivateollisuus
| osakeyhtiö | |
| Industry | shipbuilding |
| Fate | merged to Wärtsilä Marine and closed |
| Successors | Wärtsilä Marine Late-Rakenteet |
| Founded | 1 February 1945 in Turku, Finland |
| Founder |
|
| Defunct | 1988 (yard closed) 1990 (removed from business register) |
| Headquarters | Pansio, Turku, Finland |
| Parent | Valmet (1974–1986) |
Oy Laivateollisuus Ab (LaTe) was a Finnish shipbuilding company located in Pansio, Turku. The company was founded in 1945 to serve Finnish war reparation industry and focused on wooden ships. The first vessels were a series of schooners, which were followed by other wooden vessels. The last wooden hulls were produced in 1958. The company continued producing wooden gluelam structures in parallel with shipbuilding.
LaTe specialised on research vessels of which main customer was Soviet Union. In 1973 it was taken over by Valmet, which merged it with the adjacent Pansio shipyard in 1983. Between 1983−1986 the company operated under name Valmetin Laivateollisuus Oy, after which the original name was restored.
In 1987 Valmet put together its shipbuilding together with Wärtsilä under new company Wärtsilä Marine. The Laivateollisuus yard was discontinued in 1988 and the gluelam structure production was continued by new owners under name Late-Rakenteet Oy.
The nearby Laivateollisuus neighbourhood, originally built for the yard workers, is protected and listed as one of the Finnish cultural environments of national significance.
After the Continuation War between Finland and Soviet Union ended to Moscow Armistice in 1944, Finland had to pay large war reparations. The whole sum had to be paid in goods; over one fifth of the value consisted vessels. The oddest vessels included onto the list were 90 wooden 300-tonne schooners. As all shipyards of Finland had moved to steel as construction material already for decades ago, it was challenging to find experts in the field. It turned out that in the whole country there were just three people who had the required know-how for designing of such ships. One of them was Kaarlo Pulli, who had evacuated his business to Rauma after Koivisto, where his premises were located, was ceded to Soviet Union with the rest of the Karelian Isthmus. Another one was Porvoo engineer Gösta Kynzell, who had previous experience from wooden schooners, and the third one was Jarl Lindblom, technical manager of Turku Boat Works. Delegation of War Reparation Industry (Soteva) ordered from Kynzell preliminary sketches which were completeded into firm plans by Lindblom.
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