Helsinki Shipyard has no shortage of work right now. The Finnish yard is building the country's newest icebreaker, the Aino, due in 2029, assembling the Polar Max heavy icebreaker for a Finland-Canada programme (hull work started in May 2026), and constructing two Arctic Security Cutters for the U.S. Coast Guard under a $3.5 billion Davie Defense contract, with the first slated for 2028.
So where do passenger ships fit? According to Jussi Lehtinen, the yard's vice president of sales and projects, they never left. He says cruise ships and specialised passenger vessels remain a core part of the yard's strategy, even with the current orderbook dominated by icebreakers, and that it keeps pursuing opportunities in the cruise market.
That's good news for expedition cruising, because Helsinki is one of the few places on earth with genuine Arctic shipbuilding pedigree. Its last three cruise deliveries were the Swan Hellenic expedition ships Minerva, Vega and Diana, all handed over between 2021 and 2023 — vessels purpose-built for polar and remote-region itineraries. The same ice-class know-how behind those ships is what draws the icebreaker contracts, and vice versa: the yard built the Polaris in 2016, one of the world's first LNG-powered icebreakers.
The physical setup matters too. The yard's covered 280-metre graving dock — the same one currently housing the Polar Max — can handle cruise ships up to 70,000 tons, which covers most expedition and small luxury tonnage. Around it sits Finland's broader maritime cluster, with specialist skills in Arctic-rated systems, sustainable propulsion and low-impact design for fragile environments.
Since Canada's Davie, under the Inocea Group, bought the yard in 2023, capacity has been expanding. A €200 million investment programme is underway across the Helsinki and Pori facilities, including an intermediate gate in the drydock that lets the yard juggle multiple projects at once — a practical answer to anyone wondering whether cruise work will be squeezed out by defence orders.
Why should travellers care? Expedition cruising is growing fast, and the ships that sail it increasingly need to balance ice capability with strict environmental rules and a comfortable onboard experience. Lehtinen frames the yard's pitch exactly that way: technically demanding, high-value vessels where the operating environment, performance, sustainability and passenger experience are all priorities. If your next Antarctic or Arctic trip is aboard a new small ship with hybrid or LNG propulsion and genuine cold-water credentials, there's a decent chance it came out of — or will come out of — Helsinki.
The takeaway for cruise watchers: defence money has made Helsinki's orderbook busier than it has been in years, but the yard is publicly signalling that expedition and passenger vessels are still very much on the table. Watch this space for the next round of Swan Hellenic-style orders.
Excerpted from the Fall 2026 Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine.
