Sauna rafts shipped to London as RoRo freight

 “Our RoRo vessels can cope with most cargoes, so sauna rafts were no problem,” says Karolina Johansson, Sales Representative at SCA Logistics.

Sauna rafts have become trendy in many cities. The rafts are rented privately for hen and stag parties and to corporate customers arranging after-work events or conferences. Many of the rafts also offer individual bookings. 

“They’re often fully booked for the entire day,” says Jonatan Tuori, owner of Marinbastun.

London´´ s business quarter

Founded 15 years ago, Marinbastun has noticed a sharp increase in interest in the company’s sauna rafts.

“Initially they were only bought by private customers, but now we mainly sell them to hotels and event companies. There’s enormous interest in Oslo, where there are some 40 sauna rafts. We delivered the very first one and since then we have delivered several more,” says Tuori. The two sauna rafts delivered to England are now docked on the River Thames at Canary Wharf in East London. The gleaming skyscrapers of this finance district are home to many major banks and multinational corporations. 

“We delivered a large sauna raft to the same company in the spring and this proved very popular. These two somewhat smaller rafts are intended to supplement the large one,” explains Tuori.

Ideally suited to cassettes

Marinbastun’s factory is located in Söderfors, just south of Gävle on Sweden’s Baltic coast, only 250 kilometres from SCA Logistics’ Sundsvall terminal, which is on the regular route of SCA’s RoRo vessels.

“We were previously unaware that it was possible to ship from Sundsvall so our products were driven by road to the Port of Gothenburg. Of course, Sundsvall is much closer,” says Tuori.

Although the most common cargoes on SCA’s RoRo vessels are forest industry products such as kraftliner and pulp bails, the vessels also carry a wide range of other goods.

“We’ve transported everything from luxury cars to large cranes and enormous wind turbine components. RoRo vessels are very flexible and what’s more they have an extremely low level of damage,” says Karolina.

While sauna rafts are hardly the most common cargo, they are ideally suited to being loaded on the cassettes used for much of the cargo on RoRo vessels. The rafts were shipped from the Sundsvall terminal to SCA Logistics’ terminal in Tilbury, where they were transferred to a smaller boat for the journey up the Thames.

“Everything went very smoothly,” Tuori confirms.

Built of SCA timber

In addition to shipping the sauna rafts, SCA also supplied much of the raw material used in their construction. Marinbastun places very high demands on the timber, as it is subjected to considerable strain when the sauna rafts are used.

“The fact that our products are exposed to water, heat and cold poses many challenges. This means that we need to put a great deal of effort into ensuring quality, and we are therefore very particular when it comes to raw materials. We use spruce of the highest quality for walls and floors and in this regard SCA’s timber is in a class of its own,” says Tuori.

Text: Kerstin Olofsson
Photo: Marinbastun