Built in by P. Smit Jr. Shipbuilding and Machine Factory in Rotterdam , Netherlands, she was the last and largest steam-powered state-owned icebreaker of Finland. She remained in service until the s and was broken up in Since both the size of the ships calling at the Finnish winter ports and the amount of exported goods, especially forest products, had increased considerably since the First World War , there was a definite need for a large and powerful icebreaker.
One of the key issues was the beam of the existing icebreakers, 14 metres 46 ft , which was not enough for the new ships used to transport goods across the Atlantic Ocean. The basic design of the new vessel, which was to have a beam of at least 18 metres 59 ft , was awarded to experienced Finnish naval architects K. Albin Johansson and Ossian Tybeck. By June , bids ranging from FIM The most expensive offer was received from the Finnish Sandvikens Skeppsdocka och Mekaniska Verkstads Ab that was already building another new icebreaker, Voima , in Helsinki.
In the end, the contract was awarded to the Dutch shipbuilder P. Shipbuilding and Machine Factory from Rotterdam. The shipyard had recently constructed four ice-strengthened ships for the Finland Steamship Company and the technical director of the company had personally spent several weeks on board the Finnish icebreaker Sampo during the past winter.
Curiously, her namesake animal is not a native species to Finland. Although there were still issues with the oil-fired boilers by late February, it was agreed to take the delivery of the new icebreaker on 2 March and solve the problems later as the winter of had turned out to be very severe. However, as a Baltic escort icebreaker she was considered better than the giants and was often compared with the Soviet icebreaker Lenin , which was roughly of the same size and was considered a very successful design.
After Sampo had arrived from Hanko with the Minister of Commerce and Industry, Tyko Reinikka , other representatives of the state, and members of the press, the newest and largest state-owned icebreaker demonstrated her power by easily overcoming the notorious pack ice fields surrounding the island and escorting a convoy of three merchant ships to the open seas. Since the officers and most of the crew spoke Swedish as their first language, this resulted in negative comments from the Swedish-speaking minority , which considered Finnish to be "the language of the peasants", and even concerns about the safety of navigation.
