Rain and ships

It was raining heavily on Monday and so we decided to visit the indoor Vasa Museum. We had not expected it to be quite so interesting.

The Vasa is a 17th century ship that sank on its maiden voyage on Sunday, 10 August, 1628, having covered a distance to one nautical mile. She was to have been the flagship of the Swedish fleet and was extravagantly decorated. She was only 100 metres from shore on two sides but went straight to the bottom 16 fathoms below. The event and its consequent inquiry are well documented. Essentially she was too top heavy and didn't have enough ballast.

The ship was located in 1956 and raised in 1961.

There is an excellent history on Wikipedia!

As it was raining, the queue was long, but the purpose built museum is large, so the crowds quickly dissolved.

A film described the discovery, lifting and restoration of the wreck, and, as we entered, was just about to start in English, so we watched that.

The ship is so tall that only one of the three parts of the main mast is on show and we did not have the camera power to take in the full length. This is a 0.1 scale model with a people in the background for scale.





The lion at the bowsprit (or the sharp end)



Looking from the bow



The magnificently carved stern (or blunt end)





The really impressive statistic is that 95% of the restored ship is original. The sea around Stockholm is not as saline as elsewhere and so the worm that would have eaten it away elsewhere doesn't survive here.

Much work has been done on the many articles recovered the wreck.

A box was found containing money, shoes, leather gloves, linen thread and wax, a shoe last, and other personal items including a hat, now in perfect condition, as was the heavy wooden box.

A model gun deck shows the canon and the decorated gun port








A detail of the lion over every gun port




An original canon of which there were about 64.





Even the sails survived. This one was in the sail locker and had never been used



Most of the 500 people escaped from the ship, but around thirty were trapped and the remains have been examined in great detail. Although I have mixed feelings about this, the results were interesting. Below are photos of reconstructions of a couple of heads whose occupation have been guessed from their clothes and their position on the ship. The helmsman went down with the ship even though he was positioned close to the top deck.



So, that was a really good way to spend a very rainy day.

We returned to our hotel for a rest and then ate at a local Chinese restaurant in the evening.



Pat and John on tour