Project Baltacar's webpage


Project “Baltic History Beneath Surface: Underwater Heritage Trails In Situ and Online”,
aka BALTACAR, was launched in January 2017.
BALTACAR is an Estonian-Finnish-Swedish cooperation project that is financed by the Interreg Central Baltic Programme

The underwater landscape of the Baltic Sea is a unique ecological and cultural-historical environment resulting from the combination of a long seafaring history and good preservation conditions. The project “Baltic History Beneath Surface: Underwater Heritage Trails In Situ and Online” aims to demonstrate the huge tourism potential of the underwater cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea by developing easy and convenient ways for visiting our unique and well preserved underwater sites in situ.

The project will produce a new tourist attraction in the Baltic Sea that comprises of a network of dive sites complemented with underwater information boards, mooring buoys, photos, videos, narratives and 3D images. With the creation of this tourist attraction we aim to enhance the attractiveness of the Baltic Sea destinations and increase the number of visits to our region.

Sukelluskoulu Aalto (Diving School Aalto) under the guidance and consulation of the Finnish National Board of Antiquities develops and maintains interesting wreck sites of Hanko. The aim of the project is to create safe and easy to use facilities for divers interested in underwater cultural heritage - and to bring information and visual content up to the surface for the greater audience to have a peek what the Baltic has restored for our generations to see.

See a few samples of our sites:

Figure Bow wreck, Osborn&Elisabeth
Film footage shot by Leif Åström. In this short clip you will see, what kind of actions are made during a dive. Tiina and Lena driving their dive propulsion vehicles inspect the site and guidelines, fix them if needed and clean them from drift algae. The orange-hooded diver is a part of the filming crew led by ocean cinematographer Kari Hyttinen. We are using state of the art 360° technology, the Boxfish camera (in this clip the black "UFO-thingy") to produce virtual diving experiences for the land dwellers to enjoy.



Kaapelihylky /Hanko, Hauensuoli



The Wreck of Östergårsharun / an unknown limestone / chalk carrier



The pictures in the below gallery show Team Aalto doing maintenance work on the Hauensuoli wreckpark, The Figure Bow Wreck (Osborn & Elisabeth) and the wreck of Garpen. As a bonus we have marked the Limestone wreck of Östergårdsharun and used effort to study how could this be made part of the projects wreck sites.

The Sukelluskoulu Aalto / Varuste.net diving crew's main purpose has been on the field work weekends to inspect and repair the sites so that mooring and diving around the wreck area is enjoyable and safe.

The mooring buoys are made from concrete weights on the bottom, and a surface / descending rope going up to 5-6 m depth. From this depth you will find a midwater buoy (seen in one of the pictures), where is attached the actual mooring rope and attention buoy at the surface. This is a convinient way to moor close to the wreck without the need to anchor to the bottom. From the concrete weight there is a line which guides the diver to the wreck. The logistics of the dive is planned to be easy and enjoyable regarding navigation.

In summer 2018 we have been finalizing the diving tourist experience to the state, that it was time to invite a test group to enjoy the experience we have been creating and give feedback. Team Aaltos representatives have been also visiting Sweden for a similar event to test the sites of Dalarö wreck park and the whole holiday experience.


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