Regalskeppet Vasa
Encyclopedia
Vasa (or Wasa) is a Swedish
warship
that was built from 1626 to 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into its maiden voyage
on 10 August 1628. It fell into obscurity after most of its valuable bronze
cannon
s were salvaged in the 17th century. After it was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm
harbor, it was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. It was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Wasa Shipyard") till 1987 and then moved to the Vasa Museum
in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 29 million visitors since 1961. Vasa has since its recovery become a widely recognized symbol of the Swedish "great power period
". It is today also a de facto standard in the media and among Swedes for evaluating the historical importance of shipwrecks.
Vasa was built top-heavy and had insufficient ballast
. Despite an obvious lack of stability in port, it was allowed to set sail and foundered only a few minutes after it first encountered a wind stronger than a breeze. The impulsive move to set sail was the result of a combination of factors: Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus
, who was abroad on the date of its maiden voyage, was impatient to see it join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years' War
; at the same time, the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to discuss the ship's structural problems frankly or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish privy council
to find personal responsibility for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished for the fiasco.
During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around the hull of the Vasa by marine archaeologists
. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship itself have provided historians with invaluable insight into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden. Vasa was intended to express the expansionist aspirations of Sweden
and to glorify king Gustavus Adolphus. No expense was spared in decorating and equipping the Vasa, which was also one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of its time.
in continental politics. Between 1611 and 1718 it was the most dominant player in Baltic
, eventually gaining territory that encompassed the Baltic on all sides. This rise to prominence in international affairs and increase in military prowess, called stormaktstiden
("age of greatness" or "great power period"), was made possible by a succession of able monarchs and the establishment of a powerful centralized government, supporting a highly efficient military organization. Swedish historians have described this as one of the more extreme examples of an early modern state using almost all of its available resources to wage war; the small northern kingdom transformed itself into a fiscal-military state
and one of the most militarized states in history.
Gustavus Adolphus
(1594–1632) has been considered one of the most successful Swedish kings in terms of success in warfare. When Vasa was built, he had been in power for more than a decade. The navy
was in poor shape and Sweden was embroiled in a war with Poland, and looked apprehensively at the development of the Thirty Years' War
in present day Germany. The war had been raging since 1618 and from a Protestant perspective it was not successful. The king's plans for a Polish campaign and for securing Sweden's interests required a strong naval presence in the Baltic.
The navy suffered several severe setbacks during the 1620s. In 1625, a squadron cruising off the Bay of Riga was caught in a storm and ten ships ran aground and were wrecked. In the Battle of Oliwa
in 1627, a Swedish squadron was outmaneuvered and defeated by a larger Polish force and two large ships were lost. Tigern ("The Tiger"), which was the Swedish admiral's flagship, was captured by the Poles, and Solen ("The Sun") was blown up by its own crew when it was boarded and near capture. In 1628, three more large ships were lost in less than a month; admiral Klas Fleming
's flagship Kristina was wrecked in a storm in the Gulf of Danzig, Riksnyckeln ("Key of the Realm") ran aground at Viksten in the southern archipelago of Stockholm and, perhaps most inopportunely for the Swedish crown, Vasa foundered on its maiden voyage. Gustavus Adolphus was engaged in naval warfare on several fronts, which further exacerbated the difficulties of the navy. In addition to battling the Polish navy, the Swedes were threatened by Catholic forces that had invaded Jutland
. The Swedish king had little sympathy for the Danish king, Christian IV
, and Denmark and Sweden had been bitter enemies for well over a century. However, Sweden feared a Catholic conquest of Copenhagen
and Zealand (Denmark). This would have granted the Catholic powers control over the strategic passages between the Baltic Sea
and the North Sea
, which would be disastrous for Swedish interests.
Until the early 17th century, the Swedish navy comprised primarily smaller single-decker ships with relatively light guns; these ships were cheaper than larger ships and were well-suited for escort and patrol. For both tactical and economic reasons, the single-deckers were more suited to the Baltic environment, and were generally favored by the privy council and senior officers. However, a fleet of large ships was considered a bold statement and an effective way to impose respect on enemies and allies alike, possibly even beyond the Baltic. For the ambitious Gustavus Adolphus, a navy with a core of powerful capital ship
s was an opportunity that could not be missed. Vasa was the first in a series of five ships intended to be among the heaviest and most splendid of their time. The four other ships, Äpplet, Kronan, Scepter and Göta Ark, were successful and formed the backbone of the Swedish navy until the 1660s. Of these so-called regalskepp (usually translated as "royal ships"), Vasa was meant to be the grandest. The second of the large ships, Äpplet ("The Apple"; the Swedish term for the globus cruciger
), was built simultaneously with Vasa. The only difference between the design of the "Vasa" and its sister ship the "Apple" was that the "Apple" was a mere 1.5 meters (5 ft) wider.
Just before Vasa was ordered, work at the Stockholm shipyard was led by Antonius Monier, with Dutch-born Henrik Hybertsson
as hired shipbuilder. On 16 January 1625, Henrik and his brother, Arendt Hybertsson (de Groote), took over the shipyard and soon signed a contract to build four ships, two larger with a keel
of around 41 meters (135 ft) and two smaller of 33 meters (108 feet).
After a few years, the shipyard ran into economic problems, delaying the construction of the contracted ships. At the same time, the Swedish navy
lost 10 ships in a single storm, and the king sent a worried letter to Admiral Klas Fleming
, asking him to make sure that Henrik hurried the construction of the two smaller ships. Along with the letter, the king sent measurements for the ship, which was to have a keel of 37 meters (120 ft). That gave Henrik Hybertsson new problems, because the measurements ordered by the king fell between those of the larger and smaller vessels in the original contract, and the timber had already been cut. In a new letter, on 22 February 1626, the king again demanded that his measurements for the new ship be followed. Hybertsson never saw Vasa completed; he fell ill in late 1625, one year into construction, and died in the spring of 1627. The supervision of the shipbuilding was given to Hybertsson's assistant, Henrik 'Hein' Jacobsson, also a Dutch immigrant.
Vasa's hull was complete enough to be launched in 1627, probably during the spring. After this, work most likely began on finishing the upper deck, the sterncastle, the beakhead
and the rigging. Sweden had still not developed a sizeable sailcloth industry, and material had to be ordered from abroad, some from France but also from Germany and the Low Countries
. The sails were made mostly of hemp
and partly of flax
. The rigging was made entirely of hemp imported from Latvia
through Riga
. The king visited the shipyard in January 1628 and made what was probably his only visit aboard the ship.
In the summer of 1628, the captain responsible for supervising construction of the ship, Söfring Hansson, arranged for the ship’s stability to be demonstrated for the Vice Admiral responsible for procurement, Klas Fleming, who had recently arrived in Stockholm from Prussia. Thirty men ran back and forth across the upper deck to start the ship rolling, but the admiral stopped the test after they had made only three trips, as he feared the ship would capsize. According to testimony by the ship’s master, Göran Mattson, Fleming remarked that he wished the king were at home. Gustavus Adolphus had been sending a steady stream of letters insisting that the ship put to sea as soon as possible.
There has been much speculation that Vasa was lengthened during construction and whether an additional gun deck was added late during the build or not. Little evidence suggests that Vasa was substantially modified after the keel was laid. Ships contemporary to Vasa that were elongated were cut in half and new timbers spliced between the existing sections, making the addition readily identifiable, but no such addition can be identified in the hull. Claims about the addition of a second gun deck are harder to refute, but significant evidence exists against it. The king ordered 72 24-pound cannons for the ship on 5 August 1626, and this was too many to fit on a single gun deck. Since the king's order was issued less than five months after construction started, it would have come early enough for the second deck to be included in the design. The French Galion du Guise, the ship used as a model for Vasa, according to Arendt Hybertsson, also had two gun decks.
, a famous Napoleonic era frigate built 169 years after Vasa, had roughly the same firepower, but was over 700 tonnes heavier.
The Constitution, however, belonged to a later era of naval warfare that employed the line of battle
-tactic, where ships fought in single file (or line ahead) while the group as a whole attempted to present the batteries of one side toward the enemy. The guns would be aimed in the same direction and fire almost simultaneously. In the 17th century, tactics involving organized formations of several ships had still not been developed. Rather, ships would fight individually or in improvised groups, and focused on boarding. Vasa, though possessing a formidable battery, was built with these tactics in mind, and therefore lacked a unified broadside
with guns that were all aimed in roughly the same direction. Rather, the guns were intended to be fired independently and were arranged according to the curvature of the hull, meaning that the ship would be bristled with artillery in all directions, covering virtually all angles except straight forward and partial, backwards-facing radii about 45 degrees to either side of the stern..
Naval gunnery in the 17th century was still in its infancy. Guns were expensive and had a much longer lifespan than any warship. Guns with a lifetime of almost a century were not unheard of, and most warships would only be used for 15 to 20 years. In Sweden and in many European countries, a ship would not "own" its guns but would instead be issued armament from the armory for every mission. Ships were therefore mostly fitted with guns of very diverse age and size. What allowed Vasa to carry so much firepower was not merely that an unusually large number of guns were crammed into a relatively small ship but also that all but two of the 48 heavy 24-pounder guns were of a new and standardized lightweight design. (The remaining two were heavier guns of an older design, intended to go in the bows, the so-called bow chasers). All cannons during this time had to be made from individually made casts that could not be reused, but Vasa's guns had such uniform precision in their design that their primary dimensions varied by only a few millimeters, and their bores were almost exactly 146 millimeters (5.7 in). The remaining armament of Vasa consisted of eight 3-pounders, six large caliber howitzer
s for use during boarding actions, and two 1-pound falconets
. Also included on board were 894 kilograms (1,970 lb) of gunpowder
and various types of shot for the guns.
As was the custom with warships at the time, Vasa was decorated with sculptures intended to glorify the authority, wisdom and martial prowess of the monarch and also to deride, taunt and intimidate the enemy. The sculptures made up a considerable part of the effort and cost of building the ship and even added considerably to its weight, thereby hampering its maneuverability. The symbolism used in decorating the ship was mostly based on the Renaissance
idealization of Roman and Greek antiquity, which had been imported from Italy through German and Dutch artists. Imagery borrowed from Mediterranean antiquity dominates the motifs, but also include figures from the Old Testament and even a few from ancient Egypt
. Many of the figures are in Dutch grotesque
style, depicting fantastic and frightening creatures, including mermaids, wild men, sea monsters and tritons
. The decoration inside the ship is much sparser and is largely confined to the officers' quarters and the admiral's cabin, both of which are in the stern.
Residues of paint have been found on many sculptures and on other parts of the ship. The entire ornamentation was once painted in vivid colors. The sides of the beakhead
(the protruding structure below the bowsprit
), the bulwarks (the protective railing around the weather deck), the roofs of the quarter galleries
, and the background of the transom
(the flat surface at the stern of the ship) were all painted red, while the sculptures were decorated in bright colors, and the dazzling effect of these was in some places reinforced with patches of gold leaf
Previously, it was believed that the background color had been blue and that all sculptures had been almost entirely gilded, and this is reflected in many paintings of Vasa from the 1970s to the early 90s, such as the lively and dramatic drawings of Björn Landström or the painting by Francis Smitheman. In the late 1990s, this view was revised and the colors are properly reflected in more recent reproductions of the ship's decoration by maritime painter Tim Thompson and the 1:10 scale model in the museum. Vasa is an example not so much of the heavily gilded sculptures of early Baroque
art but rather "the last gasps of the medieval
sculpture tradition" with its fondness for gaudy colors, in a style that today would be considered kitsch
.
The sculptures are carved out of oak
, pine
or linden
, and many of the larger pieces, like the huge 3-meter (10 ft) long figurehead lion, consist of several parts carved individually and fitted together with bolts. Close to 500 sculptures, most of which are concentrated on the high stern and its galleries and on the beakhead, are found on the ship. The figure of Hercules
appears as a pair of pendants, one younger and one older, on each side of the lower stern galleries; the pendants depict opposite aspects of the ancient hero, who was extremely popular during antiquity as well as in 17th century European art. On the transom are biblical and nationalistic symbols and images. A particularly popular motif is the lion
, which can be found as the mascarons
originally fitted on the insides of the gunport doors, grasping the royal coat of arms on either side, the figurehead, and even clinging to the top of the rudder. Each side of the beakhead originally had 20 figures (though only 19 have actually been found) that depicted Roman emperor
s from Tiberius
to Septimius Severus
. Overall, almost all heroic and positive imagery is directly or indirectly identified with the king and was originally intended to glorify him as an absolute and flawless ruler. The only actual portrait of the king, however, is located at the very top of the transom in the stern. Here he is depicted as a young boy with long, flowing hair, being crowned by two griffin
s representing the king's father, Charles IX
.
A team of at least six expert sculptors worked for a minimum of two years on the sculptures, most likely with the assistance of an unknown number of apprentices and assistants. No direct credit for any of the sculptures has been provided, but the distinct style of one of the most senior artists, Mårten Redtmer, is clearly identifiable. Other accomplished artists, like Hans Clausink, Johan Didrichson Tijsen (or Thessen in Swedish) and possibly Marcus Ledens, are known to have been employed for extensive work at the naval yards at the time Vasa was built, but their respective styles are not distinct enough to associate them directly with any specific sculptures.
The artistic quality of the sculptures varies considerably, and about four distinct styles can be identified. The only artist who has been positively associated with various sculptures is that of Mårten Redtmer, whose style has been described as "powerful, lively and naturalistic" and was responsible for a considerable percentage of the sculptures. These include some of the most important and prestigious pieces: the figurehead lion, the royal coat of arms, and the sculpture of the king at the top of the transom. Two of the other styles are described as "elegant ... a little stereotyped and manneristic", and of a "heavy, leisurely but nevertheless rich and lively style", respectively. The fourth and last style, deemed clearly inferior to the other three, is described as "stiff and ungainly" and was done by other carvers, perhaps even apprentices, of lesser skill.
On 10 August 1628, Captain Söfring Hansson ordered Vasa to set sail on its maiden voyage to the naval station at Älvsnabben
. The day was calm, and the only wind was a light breeze from the southwest. The ship was towed along the waterfront to the southern side of the harbor, where three sails were set, and the ship made way to the east. The gun ports were open, and the guns were out to fire a salute as the ship left Stockholm.
After Vasa emerged from the lee of the city, a gust of wind filled its sails, and it heeled suddenly to port. The sheets
were cast off, and the ship slowly righted herself
as the gust passed. Soon another gust came, which again forced the ship onto its port side, this time pushing the open lower gun ports under water, causing water to rush in on the lower gun deck. The inflow of water heeled Vasa over further, and it quickly sank to a depth of 32 meters (105 ft) only 120 meters (390 ft) from shore. Survivors clung to debris to save themselves, and many nearby boats rushed to their aid, but despite these efforts and the short distance to land, 30 to 50 people perished with the ship, according to reports. The flags and the tops of the main and fore masts, still visible above the surface, leaned heavily to port because of ballast that had shifted during the sinking. Vasa sank in full view of a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly ordinary Stockholmers who had come to see the great ship set sail. The crowd included foreign ambassadors, in effect spies of Gustavus Adolphus' allies and enemies, who also witnessed the catastrophe.
Surviving crew members were questioned one by one about the handling of the ship at the time of the disaster. Was it rigged properly for the wind? Was the crew sober? Was the ballast properly stowed? Were the guns properly secured? However, no one was prepared to take the blame. Crewmen and contractors formed two camps; each tried to blame the other, and everyone swore he had done his duty without fault and it was during the inquest that the details of the hushed-up stability test were revealed. Nevertheless, the answers were deemed satisfactory, and no incriminating evidence was found.
Later, the focus was turned on the ship builders. "Why did you build the ship so narrow, so badly and without enough bottom that it capsized?" the shipwright Jacobsson was asked by the investigators. He fell back on the classic strategy of civil servants; he had simply followed orders. Jacobsson stated that he built the ship as directed by Henrik Hybertsson (long since dead and buried), who in turn had followed the instructions of the king. Jacobsson had in fact widened the ship by 42 centimeters (1.38 ft) after taking over the construction, but the ship's construction was too far along to allow further widening.
In the end, no guilty party could be found. The answer Arendt Hybertsson gave when asked by the court why the ship sank was "only God knows". Gustavus Adolphus had approved all measurements and armaments, and the ship was built according to the instructions and loaded with the number of guns specified. In the end, no one was punished or found guilty for negligence, and the sinking was explained as an act of God. The sinking of Vasa was a major economic disaster; the ship's cost was more than 40,000 dalers
, a huge expense for the small Swedish state.
Less than three days after the disaster, a contract was put out for the ship to be raised. However, those efforts were unsuccessful. The earliest attempts at raising Vasa by English engineer Ian Bulmer resulted in righting the ship somewhat to starboard but also got it more securely stuck in the mud and was most likely one of the biggest impediments to the earliest attempts at recovery. Salvaging technology in the early 17th century was much more primitive than today, but the recovery of ships used roughly the same principles as were used to raise Vasa more than 300 years later. Two ships or hulks were placed parallel to either side above the wreck, and ropes attached to several anchor
s were sent down and hooked to the ship. The two hulks were filled with as much water as was safe, the ropes tightened, and the water pumped out. The sunken ship then rose with the ships on the surface and could be towed to shallower waters. The process was then repeated until the entire ship was successfully raised above water level. Even if the underwater weight of Vasa was not great, the mud in which it had settled made it sit more secure on the bottom and required considerable lifting power to overcome. More than 30 years after the ship's sinking, in 1664, Albreckt von Treileben and Andreas Peckell mounted an effort to recover the valuable guns. With a simple diving bell
, the team of Swedes and Germans retrieved more than 50 of them.
Such activity waned when it became clear that the ship could not be raised by the technology of the time. However, Vasa did not fall completely into obscurity after the recovery of the guns. The ship was mentioned in several histories of Sweden and the Swedish Navy, but the exact location of the ship and the details surrounding it varied. In 1844, the navy officer Anton Ludwig Fahnehjelm turned in a request for salvaging rights to the ship, claiming he had located it. Fahnehjelm was an inventor who designed an early form of light diving suit and had previously been involved in other salvage operations. No records exist of any major salvage attempts after Fahnehjelm filed his request, and it has been assumed that none was actually made. Recently, a map found in the Stockholm City Museum archives dated to the late 1830s marks the exact location of the ship with the word wrak ("wreck") and a dotted circle as well as detailed depth markings around the wreck site. In 1999, a witness also claimed that his father, a petty officer in the Swedish navy, had partaken in diving exercises down to Vasa in the 1920s.
, the ship and its contents were subject to several destructive forces, first among which were decomposition and erosion. Among the first things to decompose were the thousands of iron bolts that held the beakhead
and much of the sterncastle in place, and this included all of the ship's wooden sculptures. Almost all of the iron on the ship rusted away within a few years of the sinking, and of the large iron objects like ammunition and cannons almost nothing remained but carbon. This helped preserve the shape of many metal objects, though the actual metal content was negligible. Of the human remains, the soft tissue was quickly consumed by bacteria, fish and crustaceans, leaving only the bones, which were often held together only by clothing. Clothing and leather objects, such as pouches and shoes, were badly worn, but many survived until recovered in the 20th century.
The entire sterncastle, the high, aft portion of the ship that housed the officers' quarters and held up the transom, gradually collapsed into the mud with all the decorative sculptures, and all but minute traces of the paint and gold leaf on the sculptures disappeared. The quarter galleries
, which were merely nailed to the sides of the sterncastle, soon collapsed and were found lying almost directly below their original locations. Many of the wooden elements were also worn by the currents and by the flow of mud sediments, and some sculptural elements were worn so badly that they were only barely recognizable as carvings when recovered.
In addition to deterioration caused by natural forces, the ship suffered many instances of mechanical damage caused by human activity. The more or less successful salvage operations from 1629 to the 1680s had considerable impact on the ship's structure. To recover the cannons, Peckell and Treileben had broken up and removed much of the planking of the weather deck to get to the cannons on the decks below. Peckell also reported that he had recovered 30 cartloads of wood from the ship; these might have included not just planking and structural details but also some of the sculptures which today are missing, such as the life-size Roman warrior near the bow and the sculpture of Septimius Severus
that adorned the port side of the beakhead
. Since Vasa lay in a busy shipping channel, tons of slag and blasting rubble were dumped on the ship in the 19th century; this caused further collapse of the sterncastle and most of the weather deck. Traces of numerous anchors that had caught on the ship and then wrenched loose by force became evident during the modern excavations.
Anders Franzén
considered the possibility of recovering wrecks from the cold brackish waters of the Baltic
because, he reasoned, they were free from the shipworm
Teredo navalis, which usually destroys submerged wood rapidly in warmer, saltier seas. Franzén had previously been successful in locating wrecks such as Riksäpplet and Lybska Svan, and after long and exhaustive research he began looking for Vasa as well. He spent years probing the waters around the many assumed locations of the wreckage, without success. He did not succeed until he narrowed his search based on accounts of an unknown topographical anomaly just south of the Gustav V dock on Beckholmen
. In 1956, with a home-made, gravity-powered coring probe, he located a large wooden object almost parallel to the mouth of the dock on Beckholmen. The location of the ship received considerable attention, even if the identification of the ship could not be determined without closer investigation. Soon after the announcement of the find, plans were made to determine how to excavate and raise Vasa. The Swedish Navy
was involved from the start, as were various museums and the National Heritage board, representatives of which eventually formed the Vasa Committee, the predecessor of the Vasa Board.
. The work under the ship was extremely dangerous, requiring the divers to dig by flushing out mud with water sprayed through a nozzle under high pressure. Visibility was practically zero most of the time, and only a few meters in the best of conditions. A persisting risk was that the wreck could shift or settle deeper into the mud while a diver was working in a tunnel, trapping him underneath the wreckage. The almost vertical sections of the tunnels near the side of the hull could also potentially collapse and bury a diver inside. Despite the dangerous conditions, more than 1,300 dives were employed in the salvage
operation without any serious accidents.
The ship was raised in a series of 18 lifts in August and September 1959, bringing it from a depth of 32 meters (105 ft) to a more easily managed 16 meters (52 ft) in the more sheltered area of Kastellholmsviken, where it was prepared for the final lift during a year and a half. Debris and mud were cleared from the upper decks to lighten it, and it was made as watertight as possible. The gun ports were closed by means of temporary lids; a temporary replacement of the collapsed sterncastle was constructed, and all the holes from the iron bolts that had rusted away were plugged. The first lift began on 8 April 1961, and on the morning of 24 April, Vasa was ready to break the surface for the first time in 333 years. Press from all over the world, television cameras, 400 invited guests on barges and boats, and thousands of spectators on shore watched as the first timbers broke the surface. The ship was then caulked
and plugged up, placed on a floating pontoon and towed to the Gustav V dry dock
to await the archaeological excavation of its interior.
From the end of 1961, Vasa was housed in a temporary structure called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard"). The building was very cramped, making it impossible to see the entire ship at once. Visitors could view the ship from just two levels, and the maximum viewing distance was only 5 metres (16.4 ft), which made it difficult for viewers to get an overall view of the ship. In 1981, the Swedish government decided that a permanent building was to be constructed, and a design competition was organized. The ground was broken in 1987, and Vasa was towed to the half-finished Vasa Museum
in December 1988. The museum was officially opened to the public in 1990.
Vasa had four preserved decks: the upper and lower gun decks, the hold and the orlop
. Because of the constraints of preparing the ship for conservation, the archaeologists had to work quickly, in 13-hour shifts during the first week of excavation. The upper gun deck was greatly disturbed by interference, both from material from the collapsed decking and from contamination from the surrounding environment. Nonetheless, the upper gun deck yielded many interesting finds such as a well-preserved chest of personal belongings including a felt hat, sewing tools, a comb, two pairs of shoes, a shoe last
, gloves, a schnapps
keg, a wooden spoon, a number of coins and some smaller belongings. This and many of the other finds testify to the simple life of a 17th century sailor.
Initially, many finds were cataloged in groups corresponding to the original object they had been a part of. Later, this method was expanded to count individual objects such as the staves, bottom and hoops of a barrel
as separate objects. This considerably increased the already numerous finds, and the current catalog, part of which is available online, comprises well over 26,000 artifacts.
After the ship itself had been salvaged and excavated, the site was searched for artifacts where most of the roughly 700 sculpture
s that adorned the outside of the ship were found. The last object to be brought up was the longboat
, found lying parallel to the ship and believed to have been lying on the weather deck or being towed by Vasa when it sank.
Many more recent objects contaminating the site were disregarded when the finds were registered. Among the more infamous contaminations was a statue of 20th century Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi
, which was placed on the ship as a prank by students of Helsinki University of Technology
just days before the final lift.
In the 17th century, the design requirements and calculations for building a ship only existed in the head of the shipwright. Scientific theories on vessel design or stability
had not yet been developed, so important factors like the ship's center of gravity had to be estimated from the builder's experience. The hull of Vasa was divided into three decks and a bottom compartment containing the ballast, which consisted of large, tightly packed stones. Upon salvaging, the ship was found to have an intact hold full of ballast stones. Vasa carried 120 tonnes of ballast, but this was not enough to counter its considerable weight above the water line; even a light squall would have seriously destabilized the ship. Common practice of the time dictated that heavy guns were to be placed on the lower gun deck to decrease the weight on the upper gun deck and improve stability. The armament plans were changed many times during the build to either place 24-pounders on the lower deck along with lighter 12-pounders on the upper deck or 24-pounders on both decks. The gun ports on the upper deck were in fact the correct size for 12-pounders, but in the end the ship was finished with the heavy 24-pounders on both decks, and this may have contributed to poor stability.
Warships of the period, even when properly armed, were highly unstable. A major reason for this was that they were built with high aftercastles to provide a platform for soldiers to fire upon the enemy with small arms. Also, Vasa may have had the additional problem of an upper hull built with thick wale
planks that were much too heavy. This might have occurred because of inexperience with two-decker ships or because of the possibility of adding even heavier armaments in the future. However, nothing is inherently wrong with the hull form of the ship; it is within the norms of the period. Later designs, for example English ships of equivalent firepower developed after Vasa, used their heaviest guns on the lower decks and lighter ones on any upper decks, where extra weight was most likely to be detrimental to stability and the righting moment of the ship. Inwardly curved topsides, so-called tumblehome
, were also more pronounced on later designs, so as to bring the mass of the guns closer to the center line of the ship, thus increasing stability.
Captain Söfring Hansson sailed the new ship with open gun ports, which was uncommon. Usually, a brand new ship sailed first with closed gun ports to give the captain and crew an idea of how it would handle. Each ship built in the 17th century handled a little differently from every other ship. Finally, Vasa was supposed to head for Älvsnabben, the naval station in the outer archipelago, to take on all of its stores and personnel, and that might have provided more stability.
Although Vasa was in surprisingly good condition after 333 years at the bottom of the sea, it would have quickly deteriorated if the hull had been simply allowed to dry. The large bulk of Vasa, over 900 cubic meters (32,000 cu ft) of oak timber, constituted an unprecedented conservation problem. After some debate on how to best preserve the ship, conservation was done using polyethylene glycol
(PEG), a method that was also used years later in the conservation process of the 16th century English ship Mary Rose
. Vasa was sprayed with this glycol for 17 years, followed by 9 years of slow drying.
The reason that Vasa was so well-preserved was not just that the shipworm
that normally devours wooden ships was absent but also that the water of Stockholms ström
was heavily polluted until the late 20th century. The highly toxic and hostile environment meant that even the toughest microorganisms that break down wood had difficulty surviving. This, along with the fact that Vasa had been newly built when it sank, contributed to its conservation. Unfortunately, the toxicity of the water also had a negative effect. The sulfide
s present in the porewater of the sediments around Vasa had penetrated the wood, and when the ship was salvaged, and exposed to air after about 300 years of immersion in oxygen-depleted water, it began reacting with atmospheric oxygen. After exhumation in 1961 from the protective anoxic water, sulfide oxidation produced sulfuric acid
. In the autumn of 2000, spots of white residue from only a few centimeters to half a meter (c. 3 to 20 in) were noticed on Vasa. These turned out to be sulfate
-containing salts that had formed on the surface of the wood when the sulfide
s reacted with atmospheric oxygen. The stains had a very low pH and were the first indications that the ship contained considerable amounts of sulfuric acid. The salts on the surface of Vasa and objects found in and around it are not a threat themselves (even if the discoloring may be distracting), but if they are from inside the wood, they may expand and crack the planking from inside. This would cause particularly serious damage if it happened to objects made by skilled craftsmen, such as household items or some of the hundreds of carved sculptures. As of 2002, the amount of sulfuric acid in Vasas hull was estimated to be more than 2 tonnes, and more is continually being created. Enough sulfides are present in the ship to produce another 5000 kilograms (11,023.1 lb) of acid at a rate of about 100 kilograms (220.5 lb) per year; this might eventually destroy the ship almost entirely.
While most of the scientific community considers that the destructive substance responsible for Vasas long-term decay is sulfuric acid, Ulla Westermark, professor of wood technology at Luleå University of Technology
, has proposed another mechanism with her colleague Börje Stenberg. Experiments done by Japanese researchers show that treating wood with PEG
in an acidic environment can generate formic acid
and eventually liquify the wood. Vasa was exposed to acidic water for more than three centuries, and therefore has a relatively low pH. Samples taken from the ship indicate that formic acid is present, and that it could be one of the multiple causes of a suddenly accelerated rate of decomposition.
The museum is constantly monitoring the ship for damage caused by decay or warping of the wood. Ongoing research seeks the best way to preserve the ship for future generations and to analyze the existing material as closely as possible. A current problem is that the old oak
of which the ship is built is starting to give way, and the brace
s that support it are pressed deeper into the hull
every year. "The amount of movement in the hull is worrying. If nothing is done, the ship will most likely capsize again", states Magnus Olofson from the Vasa Museum. An effort to secure Vasa for the future is under way, in cooperation with the Royal Institute of Technology
, Texas A&M University
and other institutions around the globe.
To deal with the problem of the inevitable deterioration of the ship, the main hall of the Vasa Museum is kept at a temperature of 18 – and a humidity level of 55%. To slow the destruction by sulfuric acid, different methods have been tried. Small objects have been sealed in plastic containers filled with an inert atmosphere of nitrogen
gas, for halting further reactions between sulfides and oxygen. The ship itself has been treated with cloth saturated in a basic
liquid to neutralize the low pH, but this is only a temporary solution as acid is continuously produced. The original bolts rusted away after the ship sank but were replaced with modern ones that were galvanized
and covered with epoxy
resin. Despite this, the new bolts have also started to rust and are releasing iron into the wood, which accelerates the deterioration. Plans call for new bolts made from materials that are non-reactive, such as titanium
, carbon fiber
or fiberglass
.
the wrecks of large warships from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries have received particularly widespread attention as perceived symbols of a past greatness of the state of Sweden. Among these wrecks, Vasa is the single most well-known example, and has also become recognized internationally, not least through a deliberate use of the ship as a symbol for marketing Sweden abroad. The name Vasa itself has in Sweden become synonymous with sunken vessels that are considered to be of great historical importance, and these are usually described, explained and valued in relation to Vasa itself. The Swedish maritime archaeologist Carl-Olof Cederlund, who has been active in the various Vasa-projects, has described the phenomenon as regalskepps-syndromet, "the royal ship syndrome" (after the archaic term used for the largest warships named after the regalia
of the Swedish kings). He associates the "syndrome" to a nationalist aspect of the history of ideas
and traditional perceptions about hero-kings and glory through war. The focus of this historical theory lies on the "great periods" in "our [Swedish] history" and shares many similarities with the nationalist views of Viking era in the Nordic countries and the praising of Greek and Roman Antiquity
in the Western world in general. Cederlund has stressed the ritualized aspects of the widely publicized salvage in 1961 and has compared the modern Vasa Museum with "a temple in the Classical sense of the word". The placement of the museum on Djurgården, traditional crown property, and it's focus on "the King's ship" has lead him to suggest a description of it as "The Temple of the Royal Ship".
Vasa has been the subject of hundreds of books, articles and papers on topics ranging from marine archaeology to culinary history. Three children's books about Vasa have been written in Swedish and later translated into English, German, Danish, and Norwegian: The Vasa Saga by Bertil Almqvist
, The Vasa Sets Sail by Mats Wahl (illustrated by Sven Nordqvist
), and The Vasa Piglet by Björn Bergenholtz.
Vasa's unique status has drawn considerable attention and captured the imagination of more than two generations of scholars, tourists, model builders, and authors. Though historically unfounded, the popular perception of the building of the ship as a botched and disorganized affair (dubbed "the Vasa-syndrome") has been used by many authors of management literature as an educational example of how not to organize a successful business.
The museum has produced two versions of a documentary about the history and recovery of the ship; it is shown in the museum and has been released on VHS and DVD with narration in 16 languages. An educational computer game, now in its second generation, has been made and is used in the museum and on its website to explain the fundamentals of 17th century ship construction and stability. Several mass-produced model kits and countless custom-built models of the ship have been made. In 1991, a 308-tonne pastiche
reproduction of the ship was built in Tokyo to serve as a 650-passenger sightseeing ship. Vasa has inspired many works of art, including a gilded Disney-themed parody of the pilaster
sculptures on the ship's quarter galleries. Being a popular tourist attraction, Vasa is used as a motif for various souvenir products such as T-shirts, mugs, refrigerator magnets, and posters. Commercially produced replicas—such as drinking glasses, plates, spoons, and even a backgammon
game—have been made from many of the objects belonging to the crew or officers found on the ship.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
warship
Warship
A warship is a ship that is built and primarily intended for combat. Warships are usually built in a completely different way from merchant ships. As well as being armed, warships are designed to withstand damage and are usually faster and more maneuvrable than merchant ships...
that was built from 1626 to 1628. The ship foundered and sank after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into its maiden voyage
Maiden voyage
The maiden voyage of a ship, aircraft or other craft is the first journey made by the craft after shakedown. A number of traditions and superstitions are associated with it....
on 10 August 1628. It fell into obscurity after most of its valuable bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s were salvaged in the 17th century. After it was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping lane just outside the Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
harbor, it was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. It was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Wasa Shipyard") till 1987 and then moved to the Vasa Museum
Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and,...
in Stockholm. The ship is one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has been seen by over 29 million visitors since 1961. Vasa has since its recovery become a widely recognized symbol of the Swedish "great power period
Swedish Empire
The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Sweden between 1561 and 1721 . During this time, Sweden was one of the great European powers. In Swedish, the period is called Stormaktstiden, literally meaning "the Great Power Era"...
". It is today also a de facto standard in the media and among Swedes for evaluating the historical importance of shipwrecks.
Vasa was built top-heavy and had insufficient ballast
Sailing ballast
Ballast is used in sailboats to provide moment to resist the lateral forces on the sail. Insufficiently ballasted boats will tend to tip, or heel, excessively in high winds. Too much heel may result in the boat capsizing. If a sailing vessel should need to voyage without cargo then ballast of...
. Despite an obvious lack of stability in port, it was allowed to set sail and foundered only a few minutes after it first encountered a wind stronger than a breeze. The impulsive move to set sail was the result of a combination of factors: Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Gustav II Adolf has been widely known in English by his Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus Magnus and variously in historical writings also as Gustavus, or Gustavus the Great, or Gustav Adolph the Great,...
, who was abroad on the date of its maiden voyage, was impatient to see it join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
; at the same time, the king's subordinates lacked the political courage to discuss the ship's structural problems frankly or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish privy council
Privy Council of Sweden
The High Council of Sweden or Council of the Realm consisted originally of those men of noble, common and clergical background, that the king saw fit for advisory service...
to find personal responsibility for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished for the fiasco.
During the 1961 recovery, thousands of artifacts and the remains of at least 15 people were found in and around the hull of the Vasa by marine archaeologists
Maritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged...
. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artifacts and the ship itself have provided historians with invaluable insight into details of naval warfare, shipbuilding techniques and everyday life in early 17th-century Sweden. Vasa was intended to express the expansionist aspirations of Sweden
Rise of Sweden as a Great Power
During the 17th century, despite having scarcely more than 1 million inhabitants, Sweden emerged to have greater foreign influence, after winning wars against Denmark–Norway, The Holy Roman Empire, Russia, and The Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania...
and to glorify king Gustavus Adolphus. No expense was spared in decorating and equipping the Vasa, which was also one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of its time.
Historical background
During the 17th century, Sweden went from being a small, poor, and peripheral northern European kingdom of little influence to one of the major playersGreat power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
in continental politics. Between 1611 and 1718 it was the most dominant player in Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
, eventually gaining territory that encompassed the Baltic on all sides. This rise to prominence in international affairs and increase in military prowess, called stormaktstiden
Swedish Empire
The Swedish Empire refers to the Kingdom of Sweden between 1561 and 1721 . During this time, Sweden was one of the great European powers. In Swedish, the period is called Stormaktstiden, literally meaning "the Great Power Era"...
("age of greatness" or "great power period"), was made possible by a succession of able monarchs and the establishment of a powerful centralized government, supporting a highly efficient military organization. Swedish historians have described this as one of the more extreme examples of an early modern state using almost all of its available resources to wage war; the small northern kingdom transformed itself into a fiscal-military state
Fiscal-military state
A fiscal-military state is a state that bases its economic model on the sustainment of its armed forces, usually in times of prolonged or severe conflict...
and one of the most militarized states in history.
Gustavus Adolphus
Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden
Gustav II Adolf has been widely known in English by his Latinized name Gustavus Adolphus Magnus and variously in historical writings also as Gustavus, or Gustavus the Great, or Gustav Adolph the Great,...
(1594–1632) has been considered one of the most successful Swedish kings in terms of success in warfare. When Vasa was built, he had been in power for more than a decade. The navy
Swedish Navy
The Royal Swedish Navy is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet – as well as marine units, the so-called Amphibious Corps .In Swedish, vessels of the Swedish Navy are given the prefix "HMS," short for Hans/Hennes...
was in poor shape and Sweden was embroiled in a war with Poland, and looked apprehensively at the development of the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
in present day Germany. The war had been raging since 1618 and from a Protestant perspective it was not successful. The king's plans for a Polish campaign and for securing Sweden's interests required a strong naval presence in the Baltic.
The navy suffered several severe setbacks during the 1620s. In 1625, a squadron cruising off the Bay of Riga was caught in a storm and ten ships ran aground and were wrecked. In the Battle of Oliwa
Battle of Oliwa
The naval Battle of Oliva, also Battle of Oliwa or Battle of Gdańsk Roadstead, took place on 28 November 1627 during the Polish-Swedish War outside Danzig harbour near Oliva , a village outside of Danzig...
in 1627, a Swedish squadron was outmaneuvered and defeated by a larger Polish force and two large ships were lost. Tigern ("The Tiger"), which was the Swedish admiral's flagship, was captured by the Poles, and Solen ("The Sun") was blown up by its own crew when it was boarded and near capture. In 1628, three more large ships were lost in less than a month; admiral Klas Fleming
Clas Fleming (admiral)
Clas Larsson Fleming was an admiral and administrator involved in the development of a formal management structure for the Royal Swedish Navy under King Gustav II Adolf and Queen Christina. He was the son of Lars Hermansson Fleming, the governor of Åbo in present-day Finland...
's flagship Kristina was wrecked in a storm in the Gulf of Danzig, Riksnyckeln ("Key of the Realm") ran aground at Viksten in the southern archipelago of Stockholm and, perhaps most inopportunely for the Swedish crown, Vasa foundered on its maiden voyage. Gustavus Adolphus was engaged in naval warfare on several fronts, which further exacerbated the difficulties of the navy. In addition to battling the Polish navy, the Swedes were threatened by Catholic forces that had invaded Jutland
Jutland
Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
. The Swedish king had little sympathy for the Danish king, Christian IV
Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Danish kings, having initiated many reforms and projects...
, and Denmark and Sweden had been bitter enemies for well over a century. However, Sweden feared a Catholic conquest of Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and Zealand (Denmark). This would have granted the Catholic powers control over the strategic passages between the Baltic Sea
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
and the North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
, which would be disastrous for Swedish interests.
Until the early 17th century, the Swedish navy comprised primarily smaller single-decker ships with relatively light guns; these ships were cheaper than larger ships and were well-suited for escort and patrol. For both tactical and economic reasons, the single-deckers were more suited to the Baltic environment, and were generally favored by the privy council and senior officers. However, a fleet of large ships was considered a bold statement and an effective way to impose respect on enemies and allies alike, possibly even beyond the Baltic. For the ambitious Gustavus Adolphus, a navy with a core of powerful capital ship
Capital ship
The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they generally possess the heaviest firepower and armor and are traditionally much larger than other naval vessels...
s was an opportunity that could not be missed. Vasa was the first in a series of five ships intended to be among the heaviest and most splendid of their time. The four other ships, Äpplet, Kronan, Scepter and Göta Ark, were successful and formed the backbone of the Swedish navy until the 1660s. Of these so-called regalskepp (usually translated as "royal ships"), Vasa was meant to be the grandest. The second of the large ships, Äpplet ("The Apple"; the Swedish term for the globus cruciger
Globus cruciger
The globus cruciger is an orb topped with a cross , a Christian symbol of authority used throughout the Middle Ages and even today on coins, iconography and royal regalia...
), was built simultaneously with Vasa. The only difference between the design of the "Vasa" and its sister ship the "Apple" was that the "Apple" was a mere 1.5 meters (5 ft) wider.
Construction
Henrik Hybertsson
Henrik Hybertsson was a Dutchborn master shipbuilder and was together with his brother Arendt in charge of the Stockholm shipyards in the early 17th century...
as hired shipbuilder. On 16 January 1625, Henrik and his brother, Arendt Hybertsson (de Groote), took over the shipyard and soon signed a contract to build four ships, two larger with a keel
Keel
In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...
of around 41 meters (135 ft) and two smaller of 33 meters (108 feet).
After a few years, the shipyard ran into economic problems, delaying the construction of the contracted ships. At the same time, the Swedish navy
Swedish Navy
The Royal Swedish Navy is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet – as well as marine units, the so-called Amphibious Corps .In Swedish, vessels of the Swedish Navy are given the prefix "HMS," short for Hans/Hennes...
lost 10 ships in a single storm, and the king sent a worried letter to Admiral Klas Fleming
Clas Fleming (admiral)
Clas Larsson Fleming was an admiral and administrator involved in the development of a formal management structure for the Royal Swedish Navy under King Gustav II Adolf and Queen Christina. He was the son of Lars Hermansson Fleming, the governor of Åbo in present-day Finland...
, asking him to make sure that Henrik hurried the construction of the two smaller ships. Along with the letter, the king sent measurements for the ship, which was to have a keel of 37 meters (120 ft). That gave Henrik Hybertsson new problems, because the measurements ordered by the king fell between those of the larger and smaller vessels in the original contract, and the timber had already been cut. In a new letter, on 22 February 1626, the king again demanded that his measurements for the new ship be followed. Hybertsson never saw Vasa completed; he fell ill in late 1625, one year into construction, and died in the spring of 1627. The supervision of the shipbuilding was given to Hybertsson's assistant, Henrik 'Hein' Jacobsson, also a Dutch immigrant.
Vasa's hull was complete enough to be launched in 1627, probably during the spring. After this, work most likely began on finishing the upper deck, the sterncastle, the beakhead
Beakhead
A beakhead is the protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship. It was fitted on sailing vessels from the 16th to the 18th century and served as a working platform by sailors working the sails of the bowsprit, the forward-pointing mast that carries the spritsails...
and the rigging. Sweden had still not developed a sizeable sailcloth industry, and material had to be ordered from abroad, some from France but also from Germany and the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....
. The sails were made mostly of hemp
Hemp
Hemp is mostly used as a name for low tetrahydrocannabinol strains of the plant Cannabis sativa, of fiber and/or oilseed varieties. In modern times, hemp has been used for industrial purposes including paper, textiles, biodegradable plastics, construction, health food and fuel with modest...
and partly of flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
. The rigging was made entirely of hemp imported from Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
through Riga
Riga
Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...
. The king visited the shipyard in January 1628 and made what was probably his only visit aboard the ship.
There has been much speculation that Vasa was lengthened during construction and whether an additional gun deck was added late during the build or not. Little evidence suggests that Vasa was substantially modified after the keel was laid. Ships contemporary to Vasa that were elongated were cut in half and new timbers spliced between the existing sections, making the addition readily identifiable, but no such addition can be identified in the hull. Claims about the addition of a second gun deck are harder to refute, but significant evidence exists against it. The king ordered 72 24-pound cannons for the ship on 5 August 1626, and this was too many to fit on a single gun deck. Since the king's order was issued less than five months after construction started, it would have come early enough for the second deck to be included in the design. The French Galion du Guise, the ship used as a model for Vasa, according to Arendt Hybertsson, also had two gun decks.
Armament
Vasa was built during a time of transition in naval tactics, from an era when boarding was still one of the primary ways of fighting enemy ships to an era of the strictly organized ship-of-the-line and a focus on victory through superior firepower. Vasa was armed with powerful guns and built with a high stern, which would act as a firing platform in boarding actions for some of the 300 soldiers it was supposed to carry. It was neither the largest ship ever built, nor did it have the greatest number of guns. What made it arguably the most powerful warship of the time was the combined weight of shot that could be fired from the cannons of one side: 588 pounds (267 kg). This was the largest concentration of artillery in a single warship at the time, and it was not until the 1630s that a ship with more firepower was built. This large amount of naval artillery was placed on a ship that was quite small relative to the armament carried. By comparison USS ConstitutionUSS Constitution
USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. Named by President George Washington after the Constitution of the United States of America, she is the world's oldest floating commissioned naval vessel...
, a famous Napoleonic era frigate built 169 years after Vasa, had roughly the same firepower, but was over 700 tonnes heavier.
The Constitution, however, belonged to a later era of naval warfare that employed the line of battle
Line of battle
In naval warfare, the line of battle is a tactic in which the ships of the fleet form a line end to end. A primitive form had been used by the Portuguese under Vasco Da Gama in 1502 near Malabar against a Muslim fleet.,Maarten Tromp used it in the Action of 18 September 1639 while its first use in...
-tactic, where ships fought in single file (or line ahead) while the group as a whole attempted to present the batteries of one side toward the enemy. The guns would be aimed in the same direction and fire almost simultaneously. In the 17th century, tactics involving organized formations of several ships had still not been developed. Rather, ships would fight individually or in improvised groups, and focused on boarding. Vasa, though possessing a formidable battery, was built with these tactics in mind, and therefore lacked a unified broadside
Broadside
A broadside is the side of a ship; the battery of cannon on one side of a warship; or their simultaneous fire in naval warfare.-Age of Sail:...
with guns that were all aimed in roughly the same direction. Rather, the guns were intended to be fired independently and were arranged according to the curvature of the hull, meaning that the ship would be bristled with artillery in all directions, covering virtually all angles except straight forward and partial, backwards-facing radii about 45 degrees to either side of the stern..
Naval gunnery in the 17th century was still in its infancy. Guns were expensive and had a much longer lifespan than any warship. Guns with a lifetime of almost a century were not unheard of, and most warships would only be used for 15 to 20 years. In Sweden and in many European countries, a ship would not "own" its guns but would instead be issued armament from the armory for every mission. Ships were therefore mostly fitted with guns of very diverse age and size. What allowed Vasa to carry so much firepower was not merely that an unusually large number of guns were crammed into a relatively small ship but also that all but two of the 48 heavy 24-pounder guns were of a new and standardized lightweight design. (The remaining two were heavier guns of an older design, intended to go in the bows, the so-called bow chasers). All cannons during this time had to be made from individually made casts that could not be reused, but Vasa's guns had such uniform precision in their design that their primary dimensions varied by only a few millimeters, and their bores were almost exactly 146 millimeters (5.7 in). The remaining armament of Vasa consisted of eight 3-pounders, six large caliber howitzer
Howitzer
A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent...
s for use during boarding actions, and two 1-pound falconets
Falconet (cannon)
The falconet or falcon was a light cannon developed in the late 15th century. During the Middle Ages guns were decorated with engravings of reptiles, birds or beasts depending on their size. For example, a culverin would often feature snakes, as the handles on the early cannons were often decorated...
. Also included on board were 894 kilograms (1,970 lb) of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
and various types of shot for the guns.
Ornamentation
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
idealization of Roman and Greek antiquity, which had been imported from Italy through German and Dutch artists. Imagery borrowed from Mediterranean antiquity dominates the motifs, but also include figures from the Old Testament and even a few from ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
. Many of the figures are in Dutch grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
style, depicting fantastic and frightening creatures, including mermaids, wild men, sea monsters and tritons
Triton (mythology)
Triton is a mythological Greek god, the messenger of the big sea. He is the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Amphitrite, goddess of the sea, whose herald he is...
. The decoration inside the ship is much sparser and is largely confined to the officers' quarters and the admiral's cabin, both of which are in the stern.
Residues of paint have been found on many sculptures and on other parts of the ship. The entire ornamentation was once painted in vivid colors. The sides of the beakhead
Beakhead
A beakhead is the protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship. It was fitted on sailing vessels from the 16th to the 18th century and served as a working platform by sailors working the sails of the bowsprit, the forward-pointing mast that carries the spritsails...
(the protruding structure below the bowsprit
Bowsprit
The bowsprit of a sailing vessel is a pole extending forward from the vessel's prow. It provides an anchor point for the forestay, allowing the fore-mast to be stepped farther forward on the hull.-Origin:...
), the bulwarks (the protective railing around the weather deck), the roofs of the quarter galleries
Quarter gallery
A quarter gallery is an architectural feature of the stern of a sailing ship from around the 16th to the 19th century. Quarter galleries are a kind of balconies, typically placed on the sides of the sterncastle, the high, tower-like structure at the back of a ship that housed the officer's quarters...
, and the background of the transom
Transom (nautical)
In naval architecture, a transom is the surface that forms the stern of a vessel. Transoms may be flat or curved and they may be vertical, raked forward, also known as a retroussé or reverse transom, angling forward from the waterline to the deck, or raked aft, often simply called "raked", angling...
(the flat surface at the stern of the ship) were all painted red, while the sculptures were decorated in bright colors, and the dazzling effect of these was in some places reinforced with patches of gold leaf
Gold leaf
right|thumb|250px|[[Burnishing]] gold leaf with an [[agate]] stone tool, during the water gilding processGold leaf is gold that has been hammered into extremely thin sheets and is often used for gilding. Gold leaf is available in a wide variety of karats and shades...
Previously, it was believed that the background color had been blue and that all sculptures had been almost entirely gilded, and this is reflected in many paintings of Vasa from the 1970s to the early 90s, such as the lively and dramatic drawings of Björn Landström or the painting by Francis Smitheman. In the late 1990s, this view was revised and the colors are properly reflected in more recent reproductions of the ship's decoration by maritime painter Tim Thompson and the 1:10 scale model in the museum. Vasa is an example not so much of the heavily gilded sculptures of early Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
art but rather "the last gasps of the medieval
Medieval art
The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, over 1000 years of art history in Europe, and at times the Middle East and North Africa...
sculpture tradition" with its fondness for gaudy colors, in a style that today would be considered kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
.
The sculptures are carved out of oak
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
, pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...
or linden
Tilia
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The greatest species diversity is found in Asia, and the genus also occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but not western North America...
, and many of the larger pieces, like the huge 3-meter (10 ft) long figurehead lion, consist of several parts carved individually and fitted together with bolts. Close to 500 sculptures, most of which are concentrated on the high stern and its galleries and on the beakhead, are found on the ship. The figure of Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
appears as a pair of pendants, one younger and one older, on each side of the lower stern galleries; the pendants depict opposite aspects of the ancient hero, who was extremely popular during antiquity as well as in 17th century European art. On the transom are biblical and nationalistic symbols and images. A particularly popular motif is the lion
Lion
The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera, and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger...
, which can be found as the mascarons
Mascaron (architecture)
In architecture, a mascaron ornament is a face, usually human, sometimes frightening or chimeric whose function was originally to frighten away evil spirits so that they would not enter the building. The concept was subsequently adapted to become a purely decorative element. The most recent...
originally fitted on the insides of the gunport doors, grasping the royal coat of arms on either side, the figurehead, and even clinging to the top of the rudder. Each side of the beakhead originally had 20 figures (though only 19 have actually been found) that depicted Roman emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
s from Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
to Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...
. Overall, almost all heroic and positive imagery is directly or indirectly identified with the king and was originally intended to glorify him as an absolute and flawless ruler. The only actual portrait of the king, however, is located at the very top of the transom in the stern. Here he is depicted as a young boy with long, flowing hair, being crowned by two griffin
Griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon is a legendary creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle...
s representing the king's father, Charles IX
Charles IX of Sweden
Charles IX of Sweden also Carl, was King of Sweden from 1604 until his death. He was the youngest son of King Gustav I of Sweden and his second wife, Margaret Leijonhufvud, brother of Eric XIV and John III of Sweden, and uncle of Sigismund III Vasa king of both Sweden and Poland...
.
The artistic quality of the sculptures varies considerably, and about four distinct styles can be identified. The only artist who has been positively associated with various sculptures is that of Mårten Redtmer, whose style has been described as "powerful, lively and naturalistic" and was responsible for a considerable percentage of the sculptures. These include some of the most important and prestigious pieces: the figurehead lion, the royal coat of arms, and the sculpture of the king at the top of the transom. Two of the other styles are described as "elegant ... a little stereotyped and manneristic", and of a "heavy, leisurely but nevertheless rich and lively style", respectively. The fourth and last style, deemed clearly inferior to the other three, is described as "stiff and ungainly" and was done by other carvers, perhaps even apprentices, of lesser skill.
Maiden voyage
Älvsnabben
Älvsnabben is a natural harbor consisting of four small islands Älvsnabben, Bjurshagslandet, Kapellön and Gubbholmen near Muskö in the archipelago north of Stockholm, Sweden. Älvsnabben was mentioned as a anchoring place as early as the 13th century, then a part of a medieval sailing rout, in the...
. The day was calm, and the only wind was a light breeze from the southwest. The ship was towed along the waterfront to the southern side of the harbor, where three sails were set, and the ship made way to the east. The gun ports were open, and the guns were out to fire a salute as the ship left Stockholm.
After Vasa emerged from the lee of the city, a gust of wind filled its sails, and it heeled suddenly to port. The sheets
Sheet (sailing)
In sailing, a sheet is a line used to control the movable corner of a sail.- Fore-and-aft rigs:Fore-and-aft rigs comprise the vast majority of sailing vessels in use today, including effectively all dinghies and yachts. The sheet on a fore-and-aft sail controls the angle of the sail to the wind,...
were cast off, and the ship slowly righted herself
Metacentric height
The metacentric height is a measurement of the static stability of a floating body. It is calculated as the distance between the centre of gravity of a ship and its metacentre . A larger metacentric height implies greater stability against overturning...
as the gust passed. Soon another gust came, which again forced the ship onto its port side, this time pushing the open lower gun ports under water, causing water to rush in on the lower gun deck. The inflow of water heeled Vasa over further, and it quickly sank to a depth of 32 meters (105 ft) only 120 meters (390 ft) from shore. Survivors clung to debris to save themselves, and many nearby boats rushed to their aid, but despite these efforts and the short distance to land, 30 to 50 people perished with the ship, according to reports. The flags and the tops of the main and fore masts, still visible above the surface, leaned heavily to port because of ballast that had shifted during the sinking. Vasa sank in full view of a crowd of hundreds, if not thousands, of mostly ordinary Stockholmers who had come to see the great ship set sail. The crowd included foreign ambassadors, in effect spies of Gustavus Adolphus' allies and enemies, who also witnessed the catastrophe.
Inquest
The king was notified by letter of Vasas fate on 27 August. "Imprudence and negligence" must have been the cause, he wrote angrily in his reply, demanding in no uncertain terms that the guilty parties be punished. Captain Söfring Hansson, who survived the disaster, was immediately imprisoned awaiting trial. Under initial interrogation, he swore that the guns had been properly secured and that the crew was sober. A full inquest, organized by a committee, many members of which were also on the privy council, took place before a court of admirals and councilors on 5 September 1628. Each of the surviving officers was questioned as was the supervising shipwright and a number of expert witnesses. Also present at the inquest was the Admiral of the Realm. The object of the inquest was as much or more to find a scapegoat as to find out why the ship had sunk. Whoever the committee might find guilty for the fiasco would face a severe penalty.Surviving crew members were questioned one by one about the handling of the ship at the time of the disaster. Was it rigged properly for the wind? Was the crew sober? Was the ballast properly stowed? Were the guns properly secured? However, no one was prepared to take the blame. Crewmen and contractors formed two camps; each tried to blame the other, and everyone swore he had done his duty without fault and it was during the inquest that the details of the hushed-up stability test were revealed. Nevertheless, the answers were deemed satisfactory, and no incriminating evidence was found.
Later, the focus was turned on the ship builders. "Why did you build the ship so narrow, so badly and without enough bottom that it capsized?" the shipwright Jacobsson was asked by the investigators. He fell back on the classic strategy of civil servants; he had simply followed orders. Jacobsson stated that he built the ship as directed by Henrik Hybertsson (long since dead and buried), who in turn had followed the instructions of the king. Jacobsson had in fact widened the ship by 42 centimeters (1.38 ft) after taking over the construction, but the ship's construction was too far along to allow further widening.
In the end, no guilty party could be found. The answer Arendt Hybertsson gave when asked by the court why the ship sank was "only God knows". Gustavus Adolphus had approved all measurements and armaments, and the ship was built according to the instructions and loaded with the number of guns specified. In the end, no one was punished or found guilty for negligence, and the sinking was explained as an act of God. The sinking of Vasa was a major economic disaster; the ship's cost was more than 40,000 dalers
Swedish riksdaler
The riksdaler was the name of a Swedish coin first minted in 1604. Between 1777 and 1873, it was the currency of Sweden. The daler, like the dollar, was named after the German Thaler. The similarly named Reichsthaler, rijksdaalder, and rigsdaler were used in Germany and Austria-Hungary, the...
, a huge expense for the small Swedish state.
Vasa as a wreck
Anchor
An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, that is used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the vessel from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which itself comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα .Anchors can either be temporary or permanent...
s were sent down and hooked to the ship. The two hulks were filled with as much water as was safe, the ropes tightened, and the water pumped out. The sunken ship then rose with the ships on the surface and could be towed to shallower waters. The process was then repeated until the entire ship was successfully raised above water level. Even if the underwater weight of Vasa was not great, the mud in which it had settled made it sit more secure on the bottom and required considerable lifting power to overcome. More than 30 years after the ship's sinking, in 1664, Albreckt von Treileben and Andreas Peckell mounted an effort to recover the valuable guns. With a simple diving bell
Diving bell
A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers to depth in the ocean. The most common types are the wet bell and the closed bell....
, the team of Swedes and Germans retrieved more than 50 of them.
Such activity waned when it became clear that the ship could not be raised by the technology of the time. However, Vasa did not fall completely into obscurity after the recovery of the guns. The ship was mentioned in several histories of Sweden and the Swedish Navy, but the exact location of the ship and the details surrounding it varied. In 1844, the navy officer Anton Ludwig Fahnehjelm turned in a request for salvaging rights to the ship, claiming he had located it. Fahnehjelm was an inventor who designed an early form of light diving suit and had previously been involved in other salvage operations. No records exist of any major salvage attempts after Fahnehjelm filed his request, and it has been assumed that none was actually made. Recently, a map found in the Stockholm City Museum archives dated to the late 1830s marks the exact location of the ship with the word wrak ("wreck") and a dotted circle as well as detailed depth markings around the wreck site. In 1999, a witness also claimed that his father, a petty officer in the Swedish navy, had partaken in diving exercises down to Vasa in the 1920s.
Deterioration
In the 333 years that Vasa lay on the bottom of Stockholms strömStockholms ström
Stockholms ström, also known as Strömmen, in Stockholm is the innermost part of Saltsjön, a bay of the Baltic Sea. It continues into Lake Mälaren through Norrström.-See also:*Geography of Stockholm*Rivers of Sweden...
, the ship and its contents were subject to several destructive forces, first among which were decomposition and erosion. Among the first things to decompose were the thousands of iron bolts that held the beakhead
Beakhead
A beakhead is the protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship. It was fitted on sailing vessels from the 16th to the 18th century and served as a working platform by sailors working the sails of the bowsprit, the forward-pointing mast that carries the spritsails...
and much of the sterncastle in place, and this included all of the ship's wooden sculptures. Almost all of the iron on the ship rusted away within a few years of the sinking, and of the large iron objects like ammunition and cannons almost nothing remained but carbon. This helped preserve the shape of many metal objects, though the actual metal content was negligible. Of the human remains, the soft tissue was quickly consumed by bacteria, fish and crustaceans, leaving only the bones, which were often held together only by clothing. Clothing and leather objects, such as pouches and shoes, were badly worn, but many survived until recovered in the 20th century.
The entire sterncastle, the high, aft portion of the ship that housed the officers' quarters and held up the transom, gradually collapsed into the mud with all the decorative sculptures, and all but minute traces of the paint and gold leaf on the sculptures disappeared. The quarter galleries
Quarter gallery
A quarter gallery is an architectural feature of the stern of a sailing ship from around the 16th to the 19th century. Quarter galleries are a kind of balconies, typically placed on the sides of the sterncastle, the high, tower-like structure at the back of a ship that housed the officer's quarters...
, which were merely nailed to the sides of the sterncastle, soon collapsed and were found lying almost directly below their original locations. Many of the wooden elements were also worn by the currents and by the flow of mud sediments, and some sculptural elements were worn so badly that they were only barely recognizable as carvings when recovered.
In addition to deterioration caused by natural forces, the ship suffered many instances of mechanical damage caused by human activity. The more or less successful salvage operations from 1629 to the 1680s had considerable impact on the ship's structure. To recover the cannons, Peckell and Treileben had broken up and removed much of the planking of the weather deck to get to the cannons on the decks below. Peckell also reported that he had recovered 30 cartloads of wood from the ship; these might have included not just planking and structural details but also some of the sculptures which today are missing, such as the life-size Roman warrior near the bow and the sculpture of Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus
Septimius Severus , also known as Severus, was Roman Emperor from 193 to 211. Severus was born in Leptis Magna in the province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary succession of offices under the reigns of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus. Severus seized power after the death of...
that adorned the port side of the beakhead
Beakhead
A beakhead is the protruding part of the foremost section of a sailing ship. It was fitted on sailing vessels from the 16th to the 18th century and served as a working platform by sailors working the sails of the bowsprit, the forward-pointing mast that carries the spritsails...
. Since Vasa lay in a busy shipping channel, tons of slag and blasting rubble were dumped on the ship in the 19th century; this caused further collapse of the sterncastle and most of the weather deck. Traces of numerous anchors that had caught on the ship and then wrenched loose by force became evident during the modern excavations.
Vasa relocated
In the early 1950s, amateur archaeologistArchaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
Anders Franzén
Anders Franzén
Anders Franzén was a Swedish marine technician and an amateur naval archaeologist. He is most famous for having located the 1628 wreck of the Swedish galleon Vasa in 1956 and participated in her salvage 1959-1961...
considered the possibility of recovering wrecks from the cold brackish waters of the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
because, he reasoned, they were free from the shipworm
Shipworm
Shipworms are not worms at all, but rather a group of unusual saltwater clams with very small shells, notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water, such as piers, docks and wooden ships...
Teredo navalis, which usually destroys submerged wood rapidly in warmer, saltier seas. Franzén had previously been successful in locating wrecks such as Riksäpplet and Lybska Svan, and after long and exhaustive research he began looking for Vasa as well. He spent years probing the waters around the many assumed locations of the wreckage, without success. He did not succeed until he narrowed his search based on accounts of an unknown topographical anomaly just south of the Gustav V dock on Beckholmen
Beckholmen
Beckholmen is a small island in central Stockholm, Sweden.Having served the city's shipping industry for centuries, Beckholmen is now regarded as a historical monument of national interest, and, by its location just south of Djurgården in the vicinity of other similar localities it also...
. In 1956, with a home-made, gravity-powered coring probe, he located a large wooden object almost parallel to the mouth of the dock on Beckholmen. The location of the ship received considerable attention, even if the identification of the ship could not be determined without closer investigation. Soon after the announcement of the find, plans were made to determine how to excavate and raise Vasa. The Swedish Navy
Swedish Navy
The Royal Swedish Navy is the naval branch of the Swedish Armed Forces. It is composed of surface and submarine naval units – the Fleet – as well as marine units, the so-called Amphibious Corps .In Swedish, vessels of the Swedish Navy are given the prefix "HMS," short for Hans/Hennes...
was involved from the start, as were various museums and the National Heritage board, representatives of which eventually formed the Vasa Committee, the predecessor of the Vasa Board.
Recovery
The wreck was lifted in a relatively straightforward way by digging six tunnels under the hull through which steel cables were attached to a pair of lifting pontoonsPontoon (boat)
A pontoon is a flotation device with buoyancy sufficient to float itself as well as a heavy load. A pontoon boat is a flattish boat that relies on pontoons to float. Pontoons may be used on boats, rafts, barges, docks, floatplanes or seaplanes. Pontoons may support a platform, creating a raft. A...
. The work under the ship was extremely dangerous, requiring the divers to dig by flushing out mud with water sprayed through a nozzle under high pressure. Visibility was practically zero most of the time, and only a few meters in the best of conditions. A persisting risk was that the wreck could shift or settle deeper into the mud while a diver was working in a tunnel, trapping him underneath the wreckage. The almost vertical sections of the tunnels near the side of the hull could also potentially collapse and bury a diver inside. Despite the dangerous conditions, more than 1,300 dives were employed in the salvage
Marine salvage
Marine salvage is the process of rescuing a ship, its cargo, or other property from peril. Salvage encompasses rescue towing, refloating a sunken or grounded vessel, or patching or repairing a ship...
operation without any serious accidents.
The ship was raised in a series of 18 lifts in August and September 1959, bringing it from a depth of 32 meters (105 ft) to a more easily managed 16 meters (52 ft) in the more sheltered area of Kastellholmsviken, where it was prepared for the final lift during a year and a half. Debris and mud were cleared from the upper decks to lighten it, and it was made as watertight as possible. The gun ports were closed by means of temporary lids; a temporary replacement of the collapsed sterncastle was constructed, and all the holes from the iron bolts that had rusted away were plugged. The first lift began on 8 April 1961, and on the morning of 24 April, Vasa was ready to break the surface for the first time in 333 years. Press from all over the world, television cameras, 400 invited guests on barges and boats, and thousands of spectators on shore watched as the first timbers broke the surface. The ship was then caulked
Caulking
Caulking is one of several different processes to seal joints or seams in various structures and certain types of piping. The oldest form of caulking is used to make the seams in wooden boats or ships watertight, by driving fibrous materials into the wedge-shaped seams between planks...
and plugged up, placed on a floating pontoon and towed to the Gustav V dry dock
Dry dock
A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...
to await the archaeological excavation of its interior.
From the end of 1961, Vasa was housed in a temporary structure called Wasavarvet ("The Vasa Shipyard"). The building was very cramped, making it impossible to see the entire ship at once. Visitors could view the ship from just two levels, and the maximum viewing distance was only 5 metres (16.4 ft), which made it difficult for viewers to get an overall view of the ship. In 1981, the Swedish government decided that a permanent building was to be constructed, and a design competition was organized. The ground was broken in 1987, and Vasa was towed to the half-finished Vasa Museum
Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and,...
in December 1988. The museum was officially opened to the public in 1990.
Archaeology
Vasa posed an unprecedented challenge for archaeologists. Never before had a four-story structure with most of its original contents largely undisturbed been available for excavation. The conditions under which the team had to work added to the difficulties. The ship had to be kept wet in order that it not dry out and crack before it could be properly conserved. Digging had to be performed under a constant drizzle of water and in a sludge-covered mud that could be more than one meter (approximately three feet) deep. In order to establish find locations, the hull was divided into several sections demarcated by the many structural beams, the decking and by a line drawn along the center of the ship from stern to bow. For the most part, the decks were excavated individually, though at times work progressed on more than one deck level simultaneously.Finds
Orlop deck
The orlop is the lowest deck in a ship . It is the deck or part of a deck where the cables are stowed, usually below the water line...
. Because of the constraints of preparing the ship for conservation, the archaeologists had to work quickly, in 13-hour shifts during the first week of excavation. The upper gun deck was greatly disturbed by interference, both from material from the collapsed decking and from contamination from the surrounding environment. Nonetheless, the upper gun deck yielded many interesting finds such as a well-preserved chest of personal belongings including a felt hat, sewing tools, a comb, two pairs of shoes, a shoe last
Last
A last is a form in the approximate shape of a human foot, used by shoemakers and cordwainers in the manufacture and repair of shoes. Lasts typically come in pairs, and throughout their history have been made from many materials, including hardwoods, cast iron, and, more recently, high density...
, gloves, a schnapps
Schnapps
Schnapps is a type of distilled alcoholic beverage. The English word schnapps is derived from the German Schnaps , which can refer to any strong alcoholic drink but particularly those containing at least 32% ABV...
keg, a wooden spoon, a number of coins and some smaller belongings. This and many of the other finds testify to the simple life of a 17th century sailor.
Initially, many finds were cataloged in groups corresponding to the original object they had been a part of. Later, this method was expanded to count individual objects such as the staves, bottom and hoops of a barrel
Barrel
A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of vertical wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. A small barrel is called a keg.For example, a...
as separate objects. This considerably increased the already numerous finds, and the current catalog, part of which is available online, comprises well over 26,000 artifacts.
After the ship itself had been salvaged and excavated, the site was searched for artifacts where most of the roughly 700 sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
s that adorned the outside of the ship were found. The last object to be brought up was the longboat
Longboat
In the days of sailing ships, a vessel would carry several ship's boats for various uses. One would be a longboat, an open boat to be rowed by eight or ten oarsmen, two per thwart...
, found lying parallel to the ship and believed to have been lying on the weather deck or being towed by Vasa when it sank.
Many more recent objects contaminating the site were disregarded when the finds were registered. Among the more infamous contaminations was a statue of 20th century Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi
Paavo Nurmi
Paavo Johannes Nurmi was a Finnish runner. Born in Turku, he was known as one of the "Flying Finns," a term given to him, Hannes Kolehmainen, Ville Ritola, and others for their distinction in running...
, which was placed on the ship as a prank by students of Helsinki University of Technology
Helsinki University of Technology
Aalto University School of Science and Technology , was the temporary name for Helsinki University of Technology during the process of forming the Aalto University...
just days before the final lift.
Causes of sinking
Ship stability
Ship stability is an area of naval architecture and ship design that deals with how a ship behaves at sea, both in still water and in waves. Stability calculations focus on the center of gravity and center of buoyancy of vessels and on how these interact....
had not yet been developed, so important factors like the ship's center of gravity had to be estimated from the builder's experience. The hull of Vasa was divided into three decks and a bottom compartment containing the ballast, which consisted of large, tightly packed stones. Upon salvaging, the ship was found to have an intact hold full of ballast stones. Vasa carried 120 tonnes of ballast, but this was not enough to counter its considerable weight above the water line; even a light squall would have seriously destabilized the ship. Common practice of the time dictated that heavy guns were to be placed on the lower gun deck to decrease the weight on the upper gun deck and improve stability. The armament plans were changed many times during the build to either place 24-pounders on the lower deck along with lighter 12-pounders on the upper deck or 24-pounders on both decks. The gun ports on the upper deck were in fact the correct size for 12-pounders, but in the end the ship was finished with the heavy 24-pounders on both decks, and this may have contributed to poor stability.
Warships of the period, even when properly armed, were highly unstable. A major reason for this was that they were built with high aftercastles to provide a platform for soldiers to fire upon the enemy with small arms. Also, Vasa may have had the additional problem of an upper hull built with thick wale
Wale
A wale is a broad, thick plank around the outside of a wooden ship.The garboard is the wale next to the keel; the gunwale is the top such plank and covers the heads of the timbers between the main and fore drifts....
planks that were much too heavy. This might have occurred because of inexperience with two-decker ships or because of the possibility of adding even heavier armaments in the future. However, nothing is inherently wrong with the hull form of the ship; it is within the norms of the period. Later designs, for example English ships of equivalent firepower developed after Vasa, used their heaviest guns on the lower decks and lighter ones on any upper decks, where extra weight was most likely to be detrimental to stability and the righting moment of the ship. Inwardly curved topsides, so-called tumblehome
Tumblehome
In ship designing, the tumblehome is the narrowing of a ship's hull with greater distance above the water-line. Expressed more technically, it is present when the beam at the uppermost deck is less than the maximum beam of the vessel....
, were also more pronounced on later designs, so as to bring the mass of the guns closer to the center line of the ship, thus increasing stability.
Captain Söfring Hansson sailed the new ship with open gun ports, which was uncommon. Usually, a brand new ship sailed first with closed gun ports to give the captain and crew an idea of how it would handle. Each ship built in the 17th century handled a little differently from every other ship. Finally, Vasa was supposed to head for Älvsnabben, the naval station in the outer archipelago, to take on all of its stores and personnel, and that might have provided more stability.
Conservation
Polyethylene glycol
Polyethylene glycol is a polyether compound with many applications from industrial manufacturing to medicine. It has also been known as polyethylene oxide or polyoxyethylene , depending on its molecular weight, and under the tradename Carbowax.-Available forms:PEG, PEO, or POE refers to an...
(PEG), a method that was also used years later in the conservation process of the 16th century English ship Mary Rose
Mary Rose
The Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a...
. Vasa was sprayed with this glycol for 17 years, followed by 9 years of slow drying.
The reason that Vasa was so well-preserved was not just that the shipworm
Shipworm
Shipworms are not worms at all, but rather a group of unusual saltwater clams with very small shells, notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water, such as piers, docks and wooden ships...
that normally devours wooden ships was absent but also that the water of Stockholms ström
Stockholms ström
Stockholms ström, also known as Strömmen, in Stockholm is the innermost part of Saltsjön, a bay of the Baltic Sea. It continues into Lake Mälaren through Norrström.-See also:*Geography of Stockholm*Rivers of Sweden...
was heavily polluted until the late 20th century. The highly toxic and hostile environment meant that even the toughest microorganisms that break down wood had difficulty surviving. This, along with the fact that Vasa had been newly built when it sank, contributed to its conservation. Unfortunately, the toxicity of the water also had a negative effect. The sulfide
Sulfide
A sulfide is an anion of sulfur in its lowest oxidation state of 2-. Sulfide is also a slightly archaic term for thioethers, a common type of organosulfur compound that are well known for their bad odors.- Properties :...
s present in the porewater of the sediments around Vasa had penetrated the wood, and when the ship was salvaged, and exposed to air after about 300 years of immersion in oxygen-depleted water, it began reacting with atmospheric oxygen. After exhumation in 1961 from the protective anoxic water, sulfide oxidation produced sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...
. In the autumn of 2000, spots of white residue from only a few centimeters to half a meter (c. 3 to 20 in) were noticed on Vasa. These turned out to be sulfate
Sulfate
In inorganic chemistry, a sulfate is a salt of sulfuric acid.-Chemical properties:...
-containing salts that had formed on the surface of the wood when the sulfide
Sulfide
A sulfide is an anion of sulfur in its lowest oxidation state of 2-. Sulfide is also a slightly archaic term for thioethers, a common type of organosulfur compound that are well known for their bad odors.- Properties :...
s reacted with atmospheric oxygen. The stains had a very low pH and were the first indications that the ship contained considerable amounts of sulfuric acid. The salts on the surface of Vasa and objects found in and around it are not a threat themselves (even if the discoloring may be distracting), but if they are from inside the wood, they may expand and crack the planking from inside. This would cause particularly serious damage if it happened to objects made by skilled craftsmen, such as household items or some of the hundreds of carved sculptures. As of 2002, the amount of sulfuric acid in Vasas hull was estimated to be more than 2 tonnes, and more is continually being created. Enough sulfides are present in the ship to produce another 5000 kilograms (11,023.1 lb) of acid at a rate of about 100 kilograms (220.5 lb) per year; this might eventually destroy the ship almost entirely.
While most of the scientific community considers that the destructive substance responsible for Vasas long-term decay is sulfuric acid, Ulla Westermark, professor of wood technology at Luleå University of Technology
Luleå University of Technology
Luleå University of Technology or Luleå tekniska universitet of Sweden is Scandinavia's northernmost university of technology. It has four campuses, located in Luleå , Kiruna , Skellefteå and Piteå .-History:The university was founded on 1 June 1971 at Porsön in Luleå as...
, has proposed another mechanism with her colleague Börje Stenberg. Experiments done by Japanese researchers show that treating wood with PEG
Polyethylene glycol
Polyethylene glycol is a polyether compound with many applications from industrial manufacturing to medicine. It has also been known as polyethylene oxide or polyoxyethylene , depending on its molecular weight, and under the tradename Carbowax.-Available forms:PEG, PEO, or POE refers to an...
in an acidic environment can generate formic acid
Formic acid
Formic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid. Its chemical formula is HCOOH or HCO2H. It is an important intermediate in chemical synthesis and occurs naturally, most notably in the venom of bee and ant stings. In fact, its name comes from the Latin word for ant, formica, referring to its early...
and eventually liquify the wood. Vasa was exposed to acidic water for more than three centuries, and therefore has a relatively low pH. Samples taken from the ship indicate that formic acid is present, and that it could be one of the multiple causes of a suddenly accelerated rate of decomposition.
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...
of which the ship is built is starting to give way, and the brace
Brace
Brace may refer to:-Medical:* Brace , a device used to restrict or assist body movement* Back brace, a device limiting motion of the spine** Milwaukee brace, a kind of back brace used in the treatment of spinal curvatures...
s that support it are pressed deeper into the hull
Hull (watercraft)
A hull is the watertight body of a ship or boat. Above the hull is the superstructure and/or deckhouse, where present. The line where the hull meets the water surface is called the waterline.The structure of the hull varies depending on the vessel type...
every year. "The amount of movement in the hull is worrying. If nothing is done, the ship will most likely capsize again", states Magnus Olofson from the Vasa Museum. An effort to secure Vasa for the future is under way, in cooperation with the Royal Institute of Technology
Royal Institute of Technology
The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...
, Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University
Texas A&M University is a coeducational public research university located in College Station, Texas . It is the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System. The sixth-largest university in the United States, A&M's enrollment for Fall 2011 was over 50,000 for the first time in school...
and other institutions around the globe.
To deal with the problem of the inevitable deterioration of the ship, the main hall of the Vasa Museum is kept at a temperature of 18 – and a humidity level of 55%. To slow the destruction by sulfuric acid, different methods have been tried. Small objects have been sealed in plastic containers filled with an inert atmosphere of nitrogen
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is a chemical element that has the symbol N, atomic number of 7 and atomic mass 14.00674 u. Elemental nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, and mostly inert diatomic gas at standard conditions, constituting 78.08% by volume of Earth's atmosphere...
gas, for halting further reactions between sulfides and oxygen. The ship itself has been treated with cloth saturated in a basic
Base (chemistry)
For the term in genetics, see base A base in chemistry is a substance that can accept hydrogen ions or more generally, donate electron pairs. A soluble base is referred to as an alkali if it contains and releases hydroxide ions quantitatively...
liquid to neutralize the low pH, but this is only a temporary solution as acid is continuously produced. The original bolts rusted away after the ship sank but were replaced with modern ones that were galvanized
Galvanization
Galvanization is the process of applying a protective zinc coating to steel or iron, in order to prevent rusting. The term is derived from the name of Italian scientist Luigi Galvani....
and covered with epoxy
Epoxy
Epoxy, also known as polyepoxide, is a thermosetting polymer formed from reaction of an epoxide "resin" with polyamine "hardener". Epoxy has a wide range of applications, including fiber-reinforced plastic materials and general purpose adhesives....
resin. Despite this, the new bolts have also started to rust and are releasing iron into the wood, which accelerates the deterioration. Plans call for new bolts made from materials that are non-reactive, such as titanium
Titanium
Titanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ti and atomic number 22. It has a low density and is a strong, lustrous, corrosion-resistant transition metal with a silver color....
, carbon fiber
Carbon fiber
Carbon fiber, alternatively graphite fiber, carbon graphite or CF, is a material consisting of fibers about 5–10 μm in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The carbon atoms are bonded together in crystals that are more or less aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber...
or fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
.
Legacy
Vasa has become a popular and widely recognized symbol for a historical narrative about the Swedish stormaktstiden ("the Great Power-period") in the 17th century, and about the early development of a European nation state. Within the disciplines of history and maritime archaeologyMaritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged...
the wrecks of large warships from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries have received particularly widespread attention as perceived symbols of a past greatness of the state of Sweden. Among these wrecks, Vasa is the single most well-known example, and has also become recognized internationally, not least through a deliberate use of the ship as a symbol for marketing Sweden abroad. The name Vasa itself has in Sweden become synonymous with sunken vessels that are considered to be of great historical importance, and these are usually described, explained and valued in relation to Vasa itself. The Swedish maritime archaeologist Carl-Olof Cederlund, who has been active in the various Vasa-projects, has described the phenomenon as regalskepps-syndromet, "the royal ship syndrome" (after the archaic term used for the largest warships named after the regalia
Regalia
Regalia is Latin plurale tantum for the privileges and the insignia characteristic of a Sovereign.The word stems from the Latin substantivation of the adjective regalis, 'regal', itself from Rex, 'king'...
of the Swedish kings). He associates the "syndrome" to a nationalist aspect of the history of ideas
History of ideas
The history of ideas is a field of research in history that deals with the expression, preservation, and change of human ideas over time. The history of ideas is a sister-discipline to, or a particular approach within, intellectual history...
and traditional perceptions about hero-kings and glory through war. The focus of this historical theory lies on the "great periods" in "our [Swedish] history" and shares many similarities with the nationalist views of Viking era in the Nordic countries and the praising of Greek and Roman Antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
in the Western world in general. Cederlund has stressed the ritualized aspects of the widely publicized salvage in 1961 and has compared the modern Vasa Museum with "a temple in the Classical sense of the word". The placement of the museum on Djurgården, traditional crown property, and it's focus on "the King's ship" has lead him to suggest a description of it as "The Temple of the Royal Ship".
Literature and popular culture
Bertil Almqvist
Allan Bertil Almqvist , nicknamed Bertila and Trallgöken, was a Swedish author and illustrator. He is famous for his World War II-era En svensk tiger propaganda poster as well as his children's book series, later comic, Barna Hedenhös Allan Bertil Almqvist (29 August 1902 — 16 May 1972), nicknamed...
, The Vasa Sets Sail by Mats Wahl (illustrated by Sven Nordqvist
Sven Nordqvist
Sven Nordqvist is a Swedish writer and illustrator of children's books. He is best known for his series Pettson and Findus, about an old farmer, Pettson, and his talented cat, Findus.- Background :...
), and The Vasa Piglet by Björn Bergenholtz.
Vasa's unique status has drawn considerable attention and captured the imagination of more than two generations of scholars, tourists, model builders, and authors. Though historically unfounded, the popular perception of the building of the ship as a botched and disorganized affair (dubbed "the Vasa-syndrome") has been used by many authors of management literature as an educational example of how not to organize a successful business.
The museum has produced two versions of a documentary about the history and recovery of the ship; it is shown in the museum and has been released on VHS and DVD with narration in 16 languages. An educational computer game, now in its second generation, has been made and is used in the museum and on its website to explain the fundamentals of 17th century ship construction and stability. Several mass-produced model kits and countless custom-built models of the ship have been made. In 1991, a 308-tonne pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
reproduction of the ship was built in Tokyo to serve as a 650-passenger sightseeing ship. Vasa has inspired many works of art, including a gilded Disney-themed parody of the pilaster
Pilaster
A pilaster is a slightly-projecting column built into or applied to the face of a wall. Most commonly flattened or rectangular in form, pilasters can also take a half-round form or the shape of any type of column, including tortile....
sculptures on the ship's quarter galleries. Being a popular tourist attraction, Vasa is used as a motif for various souvenir products such as T-shirts, mugs, refrigerator magnets, and posters. Commercially produced replicas—such as drinking glasses, plates, spoons, and even a backgammon
Backgammon
Backgammon is one of the oldest board games for two players. The playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and players win by removing all of their pieces from the board. There are many variants of backgammon, most of which share common traits...
game—have been made from many of the objects belonging to the crew or officers found on the ship.
See also
- BataviaBatavia (ship)Batavia was a ship of the Dutch East India Company . It was built in Amsterdam in 1628, and armed with 24 cast iron cannons and a number of bronze guns. Batavia was shipwrecked on her maiden voyage, and was made famous by the subsequent mutiny and massacre that took place among the survivors...
- Götheborg
- KronanKronan (ship)Kronan, also called Stora Kronan, was a Swedish warship that was the flagship of the Swedish navy in the Baltic Sea in the 1670s. When built, she was one of the largest seagoing vessels in the world. The construction of Kronan lasted 1668–72, delayed on account of difficulties with financing and...
- Mars
- Mary RoseMary RoseThe Mary Rose was a carrack-type warship of the English Tudor navy of King Henry VIII. After serving for 33 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany and after being substantially rebuilt in 1536, she saw her last action on 1545. While leading the attack on the galleys of a...
- HMS Royal George (1756)HMS Royal George (1756)HMS Royal George was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched on 18 February 1756...
- Archaeology of shipwrecksArchaeology of shipwrecksThe archaeology of shipwrecks is the field of archaeology specialised in the study and exploration of shipwrecks. Its techniques combine those of archaeology with those of diving....
- Maritime archaeologyMaritime archaeologyMaritime archaeology is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, shore side facilities, port-related structures, cargoes, human remains and submerged...
- List of world's largest wooden ships
External links
- Official website of the Vasa Museum
- http://www.vasamuseet.se/sv/Skola/Prova--pa/Segla-Vasa/ A game in Flash format simulating the stability of Vasa (in Swedish).
- Vasa's revival Report on the Vasa from the University of Miami.
- Play Video clips of the recovery of Vasa (in Swedish).
- The Vasa of 1628 High resolution photos of the Vasa and the 1:10 scale model in the Vasa museum