The Vasa (sometimes called Wasa) was a Swedish warship, built between 1626 and 1628 to be the most powerful warship in the Baltic Sea. Sweden, under King Gustavus Adolphus (sometimes called Gustav II Adolph), was in the midst of three separate conflicts, with Russia, Denmark and Poland/Lithuania (most actively with the last of these), and demanded a navy that could soundly defeat any of these enemies.

The Vasa was state-of-the-art for its time. It was 226 feet long, 38 feet wide and 172 feet tall, with a draft of 16 feet. It was built to carry 64 guns, including 48 that could fire 24-pound shot, and 300 soldiers in addition to its crew of 145 sailors. It was designed to push the envelope as far as speed, maneuverability and firepower. Unfortunately, the state of the art in 1626 wasn’t what it might have been, and this became unmistakably obvious on its maiden voyage, on August 10, 1628.

On this occasion the Vasa began from its mooring, near the Tre Kronor Palace on Gamla Stan (a site now occupied by the Royal Palace), and was warped southward (pulled by an anchor line, necessary because of the wind coming from the south). On reaching the larger island of Södermalm, the ship set its sails and turned to the east. On reaching a point where the sails could catch the full breeze between the bluffs of Södermalm, the ship leaned heavily to port (the left). The lower row of gunports on that side of the ship, which had been opened to fire a salute, suddenly found itself below the waterline, and water rushed into the gundeck. The gunports were ordered closed, but it was too late. The ship was unable to right itself, and within minutes it had sunk to the bottom of the harbor, in 105 feet of water. Much of the crew was rescued by the small private boats which had gathered to celebrate the occasion (some crew members clung to the Vasa’s masts, which were still above the water), or were able to swim to shore, but 30 crew members were lost (mainly sailors trapped on the lower decks). The full distance of the Vasa’s first and only voyage was 1,400 yards.

At this point, you might be asking yourself why there’s an entire museum devoted to this ship. After all, there have been a great number of wars over the centuries, in which thousands of ships have been lost, in a plethora of scenarios. What’s so special about this one? And not only is there an entire Vasa Museum, this museum is the most-visited museum of any kind in all of Scandinavia. Is this some kind of weird Scandinavian affinity for incidents of extreme haplessness?

The answer is the presence of the Vasa itself, which is front and center in all its glory, after having spent more than 300 years at the bottom of Stockholm’s harbor. In the late 1950’s, long after the ship had been largely forgotten, its location was rediscovered by an amateur archaeologist, and an immense amount of effort, money, bravery and science were thrown at the ship to fish it out of the harbor, make it float again, restore it to something approaching its original condition and treat it to keep it from falling apart in place. The result is the best-preserved 17th Century ship in the world.

You might be feeling like there are some interesting stories related to all of this. There are certainly some stories – you'll have to judge for yourself about the “interesting” part. We’ll start with the inquest. In the days following the sinking, people were shocked, angry, depressed and scared. A message was immediately sent to the king, who was in Poland, and by the time the response came back (basically “Find out whose fault this was and punish them!”), the inquest was already well underway, with the same goals. One thing that was obvious to everyone was that the ship had been top-heavy, judging from the amount of tippage in response to a moderate breeze. Here are some views of the Vasa’s decks:


Below the top deck, there are two gun decks (each with several cannons), a deck called the orlop (used for storage of cordage and spare parts, among other things) and the hold (used for food and water storage, mainly in barrels, plus the ship’s ammunition and powder magazine). Below the hold is a slim level filled with rocks. This is ballast, used to lower the ship’s center of gravity. The Vasa had 120 tons of ballast stone, which might have been enough for a different ship. But the Vasa’s other decks had more headroom than most ships – a luxury for the crew, but not good for keeping the center of gravity low. The upper gun decks were filled with cannons which were larger (and heavier) than usual, to supply overwhelming firepower. Also, the Vasa had an extremely high sterncastle, a deck at the ship’s stern that could be used as a firing platform toward enemy ships, or onto the Vasa’s own deck in case of boarding by enemy combatants. Besides making the center of gravity lower, another measure that could have been taken in the ship’s design to improve its stability might have been to make the ship wider. This however, might have had a negative effect on the ship’s speed.

When it came down to it, the principal design decisions of the Vasa were made by two people. One was the shipwright of the Stockholm shipyard, the Dutch-born Henrik Hybertsson, who would have to be considered the main designer. Hybertsson had a considerable amount of experience in shipbuilding, unlike his co-designer, who had several ideas for making the ship a powerful weapon, many of which had not been tried before. Hybertsson undoubtedly had misgivings about some of these ideas, but unfortunately his co-designer was King Gustavus Adolphus himself, who could not be denied. It’s impossible to say what the final product would have been like if Hybertsson had stayed on the project, but unfortunately he died in 1627, part way through the ship’s construction. His replacement on the project was even less likely to get into design arguments with the king, but it was clear that he and many others at the shipyard had grave concerns over the ship’s stability. At one point they demonstrated this instability to a Vice Admiral, who ordered the demonstration halted when he became afraid that the unfinished ship would capsize. The king was informed, but he was off fighting in Poland at the time, and the only communications they received from him in response were expressions of impatience with the construction. So the ship was finished and put to sea as soon as possible, and was soon under the sea. The resulting inquest couldn’t lay fault for the disaster at the feet of Hybertsson, as he was dead before the project was finished. So the fault was assigned to the only place it could be assigned: to … nobody. It was just one of those things.

Almost immediately, attempts were made to raise the ship. This was done by lowering several lines with anchors on them in an attempt to snag the ship. The lines were attached to empty boats which were filled with water, nearly to the point of sinking. The lines were then tightened, and the water pumped out of the boats. The idea was that the boats would rise, and lift the sunken ship as they did so. A clever idea, but the ship was well stuck in the mud at the bottom of the harbor, and wouldn’t budge. The main effect was to tear pieces off of the sunken ship. The tactic was soon abandoned.

35 years after the sinking, an attempt was made to salvage the ship’s cannons. They wouldn’t have been usable as cannons anymore, but they were made of bronze, and bronze could be melted down and reused, and was therefore valuable. A Swede named Albrecht von Treileben used a diving bell to retrieve more than 50 of the guns, the most successful diving bell assisted salvage operation performed to date. The diving bell was actually more or less bell-shaped, and had a lead plate suspended below it, which kept the bell from turning over, and also gave a diver something to stand on. The diver was equipped with a long tool with a hook on its end. It was necessary to tear through the upper deck to get to the guns, and as they were found divers attached lines to them which were used to pull them up. Divers could only stay down about 15 minutes per dive, due to the cold water.

At the time of the Vasa’s rediscovery in 1956, by an amateur archaeologist named Anders Franzén, the ship in many ways was in excellent condition for a 300-year-old wreck. There were a few reasons for this. First, because of the harbor’s location near the outflow of Lake Mälaren, the harbor’s water is almost more fresh water than salt water, making for an unsuitable environment for certain sea creatures (particularly shipworm, which is actually a type of clam) that normally feast on wooden shipwrecks. Second, the harbor water was polluted for centuries because of the large populace and the amount of industry in its vicinity, and this also kept sea creatures away. And third, parts of the ship and many of its decorations became buried in the mud at the bottom of the harbor, and were thus protected from erosion by particulate matter suspended in the prevailing current. On the other hand, much of the ship was not buried, and was thus subject to a certain amount of this erosion. And any fasteners made from iron (like nails) rusted away within a few years after the wreck, and many affixed decorations (and some of the ship’s structure) quickly became separated from the main body of the ship.

So how was this monster of a ship exhumed from its watery grave and brought back to the light of day? Actually, the general idea wasn’t that different from what was tried immediately after the sinking. Except for the part about blindly trying to snag parts of the ship from above. In the 20th Century, there were divers and electric lights and high-pressure water jets for digging, and all of these things were used to dig six tunnels underneath the wreck, through which steel cable slings were threaded and attached to pontoon ships on the surface. This was done very carefully, as the danger to both the ship and the divers was extreme – both the ship and the tunnels were fragile and subject to collapse. This part of the operation took two years by itself, and fortunately there were no serious accidents. Next, the ship was lifted gradually, through the filling and pumping out of the pontoon boats while tightening the cables.

Once free of the mud, the ship was towed to a less vulnerable part of the harbor while still underwater. Divers cleared remaining mud to reduce the weight and attached temporary lids and temporarily plugged holes to make the hull mostly watertight (this part took a year and a half), and the ship finally broke the surface in April of 1961.

Once the Vasa was in a drydock, restoration work began. First, missing bits and pieces had to be found. The original sinking site was combed for decorations and other pieces that had fallen from the ship. Some bits were bigger than others – the entire sterncastle had come loose, for example. In the end, the vast majority of the ship was recovered, but there were parts that had to be recreated from new materials. A structure was built around the ship so people could view it. Analysis of the wood in the ship showed that there had been chemical reactions that contributed to the wood’s decay. It was decided that the ship needed a bath. A nice, long bath. Like 17 years. Of polyethylene glycol, to retard the chemical reactions, which had accelerated in the presence of oxygen. Followed by a long period of drying, which is still in progress. But it’s been determined that harmful reactions are still taking place (primarily formation of acids which lead to a breakdown of the cellulose forming the wood). Research is ongoing, but as of now, the clock is ticking. In the meantime, you can visit the Vasa at the Vasa Museum, which was completed in 1990. It’s not possible to actually board the ship, but it’s possible to view it from a variety of vantage points.






From the pictures, it should be obvious that the Vasa was intensely ornamented. The ship is covered with little wooden sculptures, though many of them are at least somewhat eroded. At least six sculptors (plus assistants and apprentices) are thought to have worked on the Vasa, though none have been explicitly identified. The figures depict a variety of subjects. There are biblical, historical, mythological and nationalistic sculptures. Lions are a recurring motif. 20 figures lining the beakhead are thought to depict Roman emperors. And the sculptors weren’t above a little propaganda. As the Vasa was being built, Sweden’s principal adversary was Poland, and a figure near the front of the ship depicts a Pole (identifiable from characteristic hairstyle, clothing and moustache) cowering under a bench, apparently terrified at the sight of the mighty Swedes.

As it was making its way through the harbor back in 1628, the Vasa must have been an inspiring sight. Not only were all of the little sculptures uneroded, but they were also gilded and painted in vivid colors. Many of the sculptures recovered from the mud still had paint residue on them. In the museum, there is an impressive scale model of the Vasa as it’s thought to have looked back on that day.



The museum has many exhibits related to the ship, some of which appear in photos above. Here’s another, all about cannons.


Having had our fill of the Vasa tragedy, we left the museum and headed for a more peaceful one, the nearby Nordic Museum.