Regalskeppet Vasa
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Vasa from the port side |
|
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Laid down: | 1626 |
| Launched: | August 10, 1628 |
| Fate: | Sank on her maiden voyage. |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 1210 metric ton |
| Total Length: | 69 m (226.3 ft) |
| Beam: | 11.7 m (38.4 ft) |
| Draft: | 4.8 m (15.7 ft) |
| Height, keel to mast: | 52.5 m (172.2 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 10 Sails, 3 Masts |
| Sail area: | 1,275 m2 |
| Armament: | 64 guns |
| Sailors: | 145 |
| Soldiers: | 300 |
Vasa (or Wasa) is a Swedish 64-gun ship of the line, built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden 1626-1628. She capsized in the first mile of her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. After years of searching and preparation from 1956, Vasa was recovered on 24 April 1961, and is now on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm.
Contents |
[edit] Construction
1621 to 1625 the work at the Stockholm shipyard was led by Antonius Monier, with Dutch-born Henrik Hybertsson (alternative spellings are Henrijk Hybertson or Hendrijk Hybertszoon) 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 (4) ships, two larger of around 135 feet and two smaller of 108 feet.[1]
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 worriedly sent a letter to Admiral Klas Fleming, asking him to make sure that Henrik hurried with the construction of the two smaller ships. Along with the letter were measurements for the ship the King intended, with a 120 foot keel. That gave Henrik Hybertsson new problems, because the measurements given by the king were between the planned larger and smaller vessels and the timber had already been cut. In a new letter, on 22 February 1626, the king yet again demanded his measurements for the new ship be followed. In the end, it seems likely that Henrik extended one of his started designs for a smaller 108-foot ship by adding another section to it, creating the 135-foot ship that would become Vasa.[2]
Henrik Hybertssson never had the chance to see the Vasa completed; he had become ill in late 1625 and, after one year of the construction, died in the spring of 1627. The supervision for the shipbuilding was given to Henrik's assistant, Hein Jaconsson, another Dutch immigrant. In practice, while Henrik was ill, the responsibility was shared between him and his assistant Hein, leading to confusion and a lack of leadership.[2]
While the ship was being equipped, Admiral Fleming ordered the stability of Vasa to be tested. The standard stability test of the day was thirty sailors running from side to side, assessing the tendency of the boat to rock. When this was attempted on Vasa, the ship started tilting significantly after only three runs and the admiral ordered the test aborted, allegedly stating "had they run any more times, she would have went over". Surprisingly enough, neither Hein Jacobsson nor Johan Isbrandsson, the two ship builders in charge at the time, were present for the stability test. Boatswain Matsson, is said to have uttered "God hope it will stay on its keel" in response to the test.[2]
Shortly after the disaster, Henrik's brother and co-owner Arendt Hybertsson left Sweden and returned to Holland.
[edit] Maiden voyage
On 10 August 1628, Captain Söfring Hansson ordered Vasa to set sail on her 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 harbour, where three sails were set and the ship made way to the east. After less than 1000 meters, a gust of wind forced the ship onto her port side, after which water started flowing in through her open gun ports. Vasa sank to a depth of 32 meters, around 120 meters from the shore. Despite the short distance to the land, 30 people were trapped in the ship and perished.
[edit] Inquest
When the King heard of Vasa's fate, he was incensed. 'Imprudence and negligence' must have been the cause, he wrote angrily in a letter, demanding in no uncertain terms that the guilty parties be punished. Captain Söfring Hansson who survived the disaster was immediately put in prison, awaiting trial. Under initial interrogation, he swore that the guns were properly secured and the crew were sober. A full inquest was organised by the Royal Council, and this took place before a court of admirals and councillors on September 5, 1628. Each of the surviving officers was questioned, as was the supervising shipwright and a number of expert witnesses. In the end, no guilty party could be found. The person responsible for the design, Henrik Hybertsson, was long dead and buried. The ship was built according to the specifications laid out by the King and one couldn't very well punish the King. In the end, no one was punished or found guilty for negligence.
The sinking of the Vasa was also a major economic disaster; the cost of the ship was more than 100 000 dalers, which was about 2% of Sweden's GNP at the time.
[edit] Causes of sinking
During this period, 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.
- Vasa was finished with two gundecks, at the king's request. Common practice of the time dictated that heavy guns were to be put on the lower gundeck and were to decrease in weight as one went up. At the last minute, the decision was made to equip the ship with heavy guns on both decks in order to make her the most powerful warship in the world. The upper gundeck gunports on Vasa are slightly smaller than the lower ones, evidence that the original plan was to put lighter guns on the upper deck.
- Warships of this time period, even when properly armed, were highly unstable anyway. A large reason for this was that they were built with high aftercastles which provided a platform for soldiers to stand on and fire upon the enemy with small arms. Another reason was that gundecks followed thick wale planks that curved upward dramatically at their ends. This placed even more weight up higher. Later time periods flattened the decks and made the ports cut through the wale planks. Later, wale planks were flattened and were not cut through at all.
- She carried insufficient ballast to counter her above water weight. Upon salvaging, the Vasa was found to have a hold full of stone that acted as ballast. Even if Vasa had much more ballast she would have sat too low and would have taken water through open gunports on the lower deck even when standing perfectly upright in the water.
- Captain Söfring Hansson sailed the brand new ship with open gunports which was not common practice. Brand new ships were most commonly first sailed with closed gunports in order to give the captain and crew an idea of how the new ship would handle. Each and every ship ever built in the 17 century handled a little differently.
- Vasa had not taken on all of her stores and personnel and was headed to an island in the outer archaepelago called Vaxholm to do so. Had these extra stores been loaded at Vasa's original dock by the castle, she would may have been better balasted.
[edit] Recovery
After her sinking, most of the ship's valuable bronze cannons were soon recovered with the use of a diving bell. Access to the cannons required removing the decking at several levels.
In 1956, Anders Franzén thought of the possibility of recovering wrecks from the Baltic waters, because he figured that these waters were free from the shipworm Teredo navalis. He started looking for Vasa and found her in an upright position at a depth of 32 meters. 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 pontoons. The ship was lifted and brought to shallower water, where she was to be made watertight for the final lift. Her gun ports were closed by means of temporary lids and all the holes from the iron bolts, which had rusted away, were plugged. The final lift took place on 24 April 1961, after which she was put in a dry dock. Among the items recovered from the ship was a small statue of the Finnish Olympic gold-medalist Paavo Nurmi of the 1920s. The finding initially caused a major stir among Swedish marine archeologists as to the origin of the item, and later received significant press attention once it was revealed that a day before the recovery, a team of Finnish students had dived down to the wreck and placed the item on the deck among other artifacts.[3]
[edit] Conservation
Conservation of the ship itself was done using polyethylene glycol, 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 slow drying. Recent developments, however, have shown that this conservation method, in time, makes the wood brittle and fragile.
Over 26,000 artifacts have been found, including six original sails, still folded. After the lifting of the wreck, the wreck site was searched for artifacts and over 700 sculptures were found. These carvings were once attached to the ship, but the bolts had rusted away, causing the sculptures to fall to the bottom.
[edit] Museum
The ship can be seen in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. The museum is in the process of publishing an 8-volume archaeological report to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the salvage. Vasa I will be available at the end of 2006. Subsequent volumes will come out once a year.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Sandström, Anders (1982). Sjöstrid på Wasas tid. Stockholm: Wasastudier, nr 9. ISBN 91-85268-21-6.
- ^ a b c Curt, Borgenstan; Sandström, Anders (1984). Sjöstrid på Wasas tid. Stockholm: Wasastudier, nr 12.
- ^ Ilta Sanomat Newspaper (5th July 1961). Article. web.archive.com. URL's last accessed October 19, 2006.
- ^ Vasa I: The Archaeology of a Swedish Royal Ship of 1628, (Statens Maritima Museer (National Maritime Museum of Sweden)), [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Vasa Museum
- Vasa's Revival
- Andy Carvin's Vasa Gallery
- High resolution photos of a Vasa model
- Harvard Business Review: The Fate of the Vasa
- Clayton's model ship page Features a scratch built model of the Swedish Warship Vasa
