Kronan (ship)

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Career
The sinking of Kronan. Painting by Claus Møinichen.
Ordered:
Laid down:	1665
Launched:	1668
Commissioned:	1672
Fate:	Sunk at the Battle of Öland 1676
General Characteristics
Displacement:	approx. 2200 metric ton
Length:	54.5 m
Beam:	13.1 m
Draft:	6.2 m
height, keel to mast:	approx. 66 m
Propulsion:	Sail, 3 masts
Armament:	124 - 128 guns
Sailors:	500
Soldiers:	300

Kronan ("The Crown") was a Swedish Royal Warship. She was built in Stockholm by the English shipwright Francis Sheldon and launched in 1668, commisioned 1672. She was the largest ship in the world at the time.

[edit] Sinking

Maneuvering during the battle of Öland 1676, Kronan turned sharply without closing her gunports or reefing her sails. This caused her to heel over and water started pouring into the gunports, capsizing her. As she was sinking, a lamp in the gunpowder store fell off its hook and ignited the gunpowder, causing a violent explosion that killed most of her crew (an estimated 800 total crew members were on board). Only 42 men survived the wreck.

During the following few years divers in diving bells were dispatched to recover some of the precious guns from the wreck, as happened after Vasa sank. About half of Kronan's guns were retrieved.

[edit] Discovery

The wreck of Kronan was located in 1980 by marine archeologist Anders Franzén (who in 1956 had found the wreck of the Vasa). She lies at a depth of 26 meters about 6 kilometers off the coast of Öland. A powerful explosion destroyed large parts of the hull, and the foremost third of the ship is missing. Several guns have been found in and around the wreck, one of them dating as far back as 1514. The better preserved parts of the wreck have yielded large quantities of artefacts: after 2/3 of the site had been excavated, 20,000 objects had been catalogued.

2006 a chest was salvaged from Kronan which contained 6,246 silver four-öre coins and 168 mark and thaler coins, all minted 1675. This is the largest homogeneous Swedish treasure found to date.