A warship for a king at war
In the 1620s, Sweden under King Gustavus Adolphus was fighting wars around the Baltic, and the navy was an important part of the king’s strategy. In 1625, he ordered new warships from the naval yard at Stockholm. The largest of them was the Vasa, named after the royal house. She was built under the direction of a Dutch-born master shipbuilder, Henrik Hybertsson, who worked with his brother and a team of Swedish and foreign craftsmen.
The Vasa was intended to be a powerful and prestigious flagship. She was heavily decorated with carved sculptures, many painted in bright colours, and her design included a large figurehead in the form of a lion. Her sculpture shows how ship figureheads and decoration served political purposes, advertising the power of the crown.
Changes to the design
Contracts for ships of the time were often drawn up in terms of dimensions and numbers of guns, and the design was not based on drawings or calculations in the modern sense. Shipbuilders relied on experience and proportions. The king, however, took a close interest and asked for changes while the ship was under construction. One of the most important was the addition of a second full gun deck, so that she could carry a heavier armament than originally planned. Reports say the number of guns on the ship was around 64.
The result was a tall ship with a high centre of gravity. The hull was relatively narrow, and the amount of ballast that could be stored low in the hold was limited by the shape of the ship. Together, these features made her prone to heeling over in even a modest breeze.
10 August 1628
The ship left her moorings in Stockholm on a Sunday afternoon in August 1628, in front of a large crowd. Some of the guns were fired in salute. A light wind filled the sails. Almost at once she heeled over, recovered, and then heeled again. Water poured in through the open gunports on the lower deck, and the ship sank after sailing only about 1,300 metres, a little over a nautical mile.
Estimates of the death toll are around 30, though the numbers aboard are uncertain, and some of those on board were family members who were making a short trip as guests. The ship settled upright in the water in a depth of about 30 metres, with her masts still above the surface for a while.
The inquiry
A formal inquiry was held, and witnesses were questioned about the condition of the ship, the ballast and the stability. The captain, Söfring Hansson, was questioned, and reported that he had tested the ship’s stability before the voyage. A well-known account says that thirty men were made to run from side to side on the deck, and that the test was stopped after three runs because the ship rocked so much. The story is reported in later sources and is widely repeated, so it is best treated as probable rather than certain.
No one was held responsible. The shipbuilder had died before the ship was completed, and the specifications had been approved by the king. Historians generally take the view that the blame lay in a combination of the king’s wishes and the limitations of contemporary knowledge, not in the carelessness of any one person. Nobody at the time had an effective method for calculating stability beforehand.
Salvage in the seventeenth century and rediscovery
Attempts to raise the ship were made soon after the sinking, but they failed. Her guns, however, were recovered in the 1660s by a successful salvage using a diving bell, so that a large part of her armament was reused. After that, the wreck was forgotten for centuries.
In the 1950s, an amateur researcher and engineer, Anders Franzén, searched the harbour area by sampling the seabed. He located the wreck in 1956. The Swedish navy and others collaborated in an extensive operation to bring it up. Divers tunnelled under the hull in the murky water, and cables were passed through to lift the ship in stages. She was raised and floated on 24 April 1961.
Why she survived
The Baltic proved an excellent preservative. The water there is brackish and cold, and it is largely free of the shipworm that destroys wood in saltier seas. As a result, the oak of the hull survived in good condition. The Vasa is one of the best-preserved ships of the seventeenth century, and an estimated 95 per cent of her is original timber, although the fittings and many pieces of sculpture had to be restored or re-attached.
Conserving her was a serious challenge, as waterlogged wood shrinks and cracks if it dries out too quickly. She was sprayed with a preservative for many years and then dried slowly in a controlled setting. She is now displayed in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, one of the best-known maritime museums in the world, a purpose-built museum that opened in 1990.
What the Vasa teaches
The ship’s story shows what can happen when ambitions in naval warfare outrun the technical knowledge. It is a case of a design that was changed late, and that depended on the king’s wishes more than on engineering. It also stands near the beginning of the long development that led, through the Dutch and English fleets of the same century, to the ship of the line, a more carefully proportioned type of heavy warship. For archaeologists, the ship offers a rare combination of a precise date, a complete hull and a rich collection of objects, from sails and tools to clothing and personal items, giving a close look at a Baltic navy at the moment of its rise.