Regalskeppet Vasa

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Regalskeppet Vasa
Vasa from the port side
Career Swedish Navy Ensign
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

Regalskeppet Vasa or Wasa (pronounced "shep-et Vah-sah") was a Swedish 64-gun ship of the line, built for King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden of the House of Vasa, in 1626-1628. The Vasa had capsized in the first mile of the maiden voyage on 10 August 1628 (details below). After years of searching and preparation, from 1956, the Vasa was removed from the water on 24 April 1961, and is now on display at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

Contents

[edit] Construction

During 1621-1625, 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 February 22, 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 the 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 the 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

View of the Vasa from the stern
Enlarge
View of the Vasa from the stern

On August 10, 1628, Captain Söfring Hansson ordered the Vasa to set sail on her maiden voyage to the harbor of Stockholm. The day was calm, and the only wind was a light breeze from the southwest. Her sails were not set until the southern outskirts of the harbor, but the Vasa sailed for less than a nautical mile before capsizing, once they had been rigged. In the harbor a gust of wind forced the ship onto her port side, after which water started flowing in through her open cannon gun ports. Vasa sank to a depth of 100 feet, around 100 yards from the shore. Despite the short distance to the land, between 30 and 50 people were trapped in the ship and perished. The exact number of casualties is still unknown, as the only reports from the accident are lacking in substance and are incomplete.

[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[3].

At the following interrogation, Captain Söfring Hansson simply stated "a gust came". It is known from other reports that there was almost no wind at the time, so it did not take much to sink the ship. It has been calculated that if the Vasa's center of gravity had been a mere 5-10 cm (2-4 inches) lower, she would not have capsized in the harbor. [4].

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 200 000 riksdaler, which was about 5% of Sweden's GNP at the time[3].

[edit] Why did the Vasa sink?

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.[3]


  • 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 higly 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 wales. Later, wales were flattened and were not cut through at all.
  • The Vasa carried insufficient ballast to counter her height. Upon salvaging, the Vasa was found to have a hold chock full of stone that acted as ballast. The rock outweiged only the guns alone by around 10 tons. Add the upper structure of the ship, the masting and rigging, the slightest breeze, and the ship is going to capsize! As was stated before, however, scientific stability measurements were not available at this early time period.
  • If the Vasa had much more ballast she would have sat too low and would have taken water through open gunpors on the lower deck even when standing perfectly upright in the water.
  • Stability tests at the royal dock indicated severe instability and the tests had to be stopped before being completed. Otherwise, the ship would have capsized right at the dock. These tests were simple and primative. They included a group of men running back and forth across the ships deck.


[edit] Recovery

After its 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 the 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 April 24, 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. [5]

Vasa's stern
Enlarge
Vasa's stern

[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, the 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. [6]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Sandström, Anders (1982). Sjöstrid på Wasas tid. Stockholm: Wasastudier, nr 9. ISBN 91-85268-21-6.
  2. ^ a b c Curt, Borgenstan, Sandström, Anders (1984). Sjöstrid på Wasas tid. Stockholm: Wasastudier, nr 12.
  3. ^ a b c Case: The Vasa Capsizes. (2006). Retrieved on 2006-04-06.
  4. ^ Borgenstam, Curt and Sandström, Anders. Page 49.
  5. ^ Ilta Sanomat Newspaper (5th July 1961). Article. web.archive.com. URL's last accessed October 19, 2006.
  6. ^ 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

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