Vasa Ship & Museum

#Vasa_Ship_Museum

The Vasa was a 17th century warship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 and it was not salvaged until 333 years later
 To finally be seen in Stockholm Sweden at its museum

KeyTip; 
The admission is free ages 18 and under with adults around $24 USD depending on the time of year
It takes about two hours to view and well worth it to see a 90% preserved battleship

 

The ship was commissioned by King Gustavus Adolphus during the Thirty Years War
 The Vasa was intended to be the pride of the Swedish Navy by showing itself as a powerful symbol of the nations military might with its two gun decks and other combat capabilities
 This included 64 cannons which could launch 250kg (550 pounds) of shot, which was twice as much as any other powerful European vessels of her day

The ship was lavishly decorated with hundreds of sculptures (this grandeur was ordered by the Monarch) but the vessel was dangerously unstable due to design flaws which included being excessively tall and top heavy with also an insufficient ballast

Before the launch tests revealed the craft was unstable but no one dared to report the problems to the impatient King

The Vasa set sail from Stockholm harbor in view of a full crowd but only managed to go 1300 meters (4300 feet) when a gust of wind caused the ship to list, thus taking on water through the open gun ports with the vessel quickly sinking and taking at least 30 lives

The ship was largely forgotten until the 1950s and because of the cold, brackish (low-salt) waters of the Baltic Sea it had preserved the wooden hull
Divers spent the next two years digging tunnels under the hull to pass steel cables through which then slowly lifted the ship to the surface in 1961

With the Preservation;
 A) It started with using a polyethylene glycol (which is a waxy substance) gradually infused into the wood to replace the water which prevented it from shrinking and cracking as it dried
B) The ship was moved into a custom built museum that is climate controlled which officially opened in 1990
C) Any of the other artifacts recovered aboard have gone under a separate preservation process like the sails that were saved by using a fiberglass backing plus acrylic solution

Despite the Vasa disaster the Swedish military and country continued to grow plus also to emerge a a major European power 

Fun Fact;
In the 1830s the Swedish Navy planted over 300,000 oak trees to ensure a future supply of timber for their fleet
However by the time the trees matured (150 years) wooden warships were obsolete and being replaced by steel vessels
 But the forest still stands today, thus something good actually came out of a war

Interesting Latin phrase to use (Taste and See that the Lord is Good) when Sweden was building military strength which comes with aggression and fatalities

Sweden at this time was vying with the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth for the control of the Baltic Sea coastline
Eventually King Gustavus Adolphus was successful earning the moniker "The Lion of the North"

There has always been a myth with the sea;

A) The Greeks; believed Poseidon ruled with his trident plus Aphrodite and Oceanus also controlled the oceans
B) Japanese; they had Ryujin who was a dragon god that manipulated the tides and resided in an underwater palace
C) Inuit; Sedna which was a sea Goddess who ruled marine animals
D) Norse; the water was ruled by the godly couple Aegir and Ran who was feared for her net that could pull sailors to their death 

 
A group of Finnish students put a small statue of the famous runner Paavo Nurmi on the ship (the night before its final lift) as a prank before it was sent to be fully restored, this confused the archaeologists at the time 😅

No hard feelings; as now the figurine is now kept as a piece of the ships history at the museum