Laid down at Werft Becker & Co. in Tallinn in 1916 and fitted with engines in Danzig in 1918, the unfinished icebreaker was towed to Helsinki in 1920 and completed by Sandvikens Skeppsdocka och Mekaniska Verkstads Ab in 1923–1924.

[1] When Finland signed the Treaty of Tartu on 14 October 1920, it agreed to return the Russian icebreakers that the Finnish White Guard had seized during the Civil War in 1918.

As a result, the Wäinämöinen, the largest and most powerful state-owned icebreaker of Finland at that time, was handed over to Estonia and the smaller Ilmarinen to the Soviet Union in 1922.

While Finland got the Avance back in return, there was a definite need for a powerful icebreaker — both the size of the ships calling the Finnish winter ports and the amount of exported goods, especially forest products, had increased considerably since the First World War.

When the forest industry owners voiced their concerns, the Finnish shipowner John Nurminen stepped in and offered the state an unfinished icebreaker he had purchased from Germany two years earlier.

Laid down as Shtorm, the icebreaker was intended not only for escort operations on the Baltic Sea, but also naval tasks such as laying mines during the winter months and transporting troops and supplies to Russian warships and coastal forts.

The construction proceeded slowly during the war and in 1918, shortly after the ship had been launched, the unfinished icebreaker was captured by Germans and towed to Danzig, where she was fitted with boilers.

Her rusted hull was seen as a pile of scrap, not worth the government's scarce funds, and she didn't even have a bow propeller which was seen as a crucial component of a modern icebreaker.

[3] However, several maritime professionals saw her potential and the owner of Götaverken, Hugo Hammar, even said that once finished, Hansa would outperform the largest icebreakers of Finland at that time, Sampo and Tarmo.

On 15 December 1923 she was given the name Voima, meaning "strength" in Finnish, and during the first sea trials on 6 March 1924 she turned out to be an excellent icebreaker that left a broad ice-free channel behind her.

[11] The four coal-fired mechanically ventilated main boilers, installed on the icebreaker in 1918 in Danzig, had been manufactured by Blohm & Voss in 1899 and originally intended for German armored frigate SMS Friedrich der Grosse.