response vessel, but this was not pursued further. The decision of ordering the new multipurpose icebreaker was made in late 2004 and the Finnish Environment Institute and the Finnish Maritime Administration were authorized by the Government to make an agreement on the vessel and launch a request for tenders in early 2005. The new oil spill response vessel was expected to enter service in 2007. However, only a few offers were received and the new vessel, for which 134 million euro was reserved in the budget, turned out to be more expensive than expected. After evaluating more economic alternatives in October 2005 the committee working on the project came to a conclusion that a new multipurpose oil recovery vessel would still be the best solution to improve spill response readiness. 35 million euro were allocated for the purchasing of the new vessel. The Finnish Environment Institute sent offers to several shipyards, both domestic and foreign, during the spring 2007. Construction of the new vessel was awarded to the Finnish shipyard UKI Workboat Ltd (Uudenkaupungin Työvene Oy) and the contract, worth 48 million euro, was signed on 26 October 2007. As the new vessel was more expensive than initially planned, an additional 13 million euro was allocated for the purchase in the supplementary budget. The vessel, expected to enter service in 2010–2011, would be operated by the Finnish Navy and based in Upinniemi, where it would replace the aging spill response vessel Hylje. The ship underwent sea trials in early 2011 and was commissioned in May. Naming On 8 March 2011, the new multipurpose spill response vessel became the third ship of the Finnish Navy to be named after Louhi, the queen of Pohjola in the Finnish mythology. Its pennant number is 999. The first Louhi was a minelayer, built in 1917 as Voin, that was left behind by withdrawing Russian Navy. The newly founded Finnish Navy acquired the ship and renamed it first M-1 (Miinalaiva 1, Finnish for Minelayer 1) in 1918 and finally Louhi in 1936. On 12 January 1945, when the ship was laying mines with minelayer Ruotsinsalmi at the Gulf of Finland, it was hit either by a mine or a torpedo from a German U-boat. The first Louhi sank in two minutes with a loss of 11 lives. The second Louhi was built in 1939 as icebreaker Sisu and handed over to the Navy in 1970,