The VASA Ship

The Vasa sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961.  The ship was amazingly well preserved, however putting it back together was like completing a gigantic jig-saw puzzle.

Scientists and historians are still discovering new things about this amazing relic.

The Vasa Museum

The VASA is the world’s most well preserved ship from the 1600s.  Over 95% of the original parts of it have been preserved and the ship is decorated with hundreds of carved sculptures.  This makes the VASA a unique cultural treasure and one of the foremost tourist attractions in the world.

It took almost 2 years to build the WASA ship.

Lots of craftsmen were involved in the construction.  It was to be a fearsome war machine.  It had 64 guns and was to be equipped with 300 soldiers.  It was meant to both scare and defeat the Polish enemy.

Jay and Christian visiting the museum

On Sunday, the 10th of August, 1628, Vasa lay rigged and ready for its maiden voyage just below the royal palace. Ballast, guns and ammunition were all on board.

On the quays and shores along Strömmen, an excited public waited to watch the ship leave Stockholm and celebrate her departure.

Over a hundred crewmen were on board, as well as women and children. The crew had permission to take family and guests along for the first part of the passage through the Archipelago.

For the first few hundred meters, Vasa was warped along the waterfront with cables from the shore. The ship did not begin to sail until she reached what is now Slussen. Sailors climbed the rigging to set four of Vasa’s ten sails. A salute was fired, and Vasa slowly began her maiden voyage.

Once Vasa came out from under the lee of the Södermalm cliffs, the sails could catch the wind, but the ship was tender and heeled over to port, then heeled again, even farther. Water rushed in through the open gunports and the ship’s fate was decided. 

Vasa sank, after sailing barely 1300 meters.

The crew threw themselves into the water or clung to the rigging until rescued, but not all managed to save themselves. Eyewitnesses differ on the exact numbers, but perhaps 30 of approximately 150 people on board died in the disaster. 

After the ship was raised in 1961, the remains of 16 people were found.

It took two weeks for the news of the sinking to reach the Swedish king, who was in Prussia. The disaster had to be the result of “foolishness and incompetence,” the King wrote to the Royal Council in Stockholm. "The guilty must be punished."

What exactly lay behind the loss could not be determined with certainty in the inquest held in the palace, but the ship’s lack of stability was a fact: the underwater part of the hull was too small and the ballast insufficient in relation to the rig and cannon. The leaders of the inquest believed that the ship was well built but incorrectly proportioned. 

After Vasa, many successful ships with two or even three gundecks were built, so something must have been learned from the disaster.

This model shows how the ship was originally decorated

The Vasa is much like a 17th century Titanic - a tribute to the extreme hubris of mankind.  However, today it also serves as a time machine for us to catch a glimpse of the past in all its glory.