Vasa (ship)

Vasa in the Vasa Museum and seen from the bow (front).

Vasa is the wreck of a big Swedish warship. It has its own museum where it is shown.

The ship was built from 1626 to 1628. The same year Vasa was ready outside Stockholm, but sank by accident on her maiden voyage (first trip). The ship lasted about 20 minutes until it sunk. Vasa sank because she was too heavy on top. Those who built her knew that she had problems, but they didn't dare say that to the Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus. He was not in Sweden when Vasa was built and he wanted her to go fight in the Thirty Years' War as soon as possible. There was a hearing about why Vasa sank, but no one was found guilty or judged for her sinking.

Swedish divers in diving bells brought up some of Vasa's cannons from the sunken ship in the 1660s. Anders Franzén found Vasa in 1956 after he had read about the ship in sources and looked for her in the water around Stockholm. The ship was brought up in 1961 and was then treated with special chemicals so that it would last for a long time. The preservation treatment took almost 20 years to complete. Vasa is now in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. It is a very popular place for tourists to visit. It gets more than one million visitors every year.

When Vasa was brought up there were thousands of things inside her. There were bones of people, clothes, weapons, tools, coins, food and even some of the sails. The things and Vasa have been very good for historians, because they helps them understand how it was in Sweden in the 1600s. Vasa was a very expensive ship and was one of the largest in the world. She had hundreds of sculptures, and they were painted in many colors. She was a symbol of how powerful Sweden wanted to look and how good the Swedish king was.

Protecting the shape of the ship: 27 cradles are being put under the keel and other parts of the bottom of the ship; The cradles will be there to stop the hull from falling apart.

Vasa (ship) Media

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  The Vasa from the Bow

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  A map of Sweden's territorial gains and losses 1560–1815. In the years that Vasa was built and sank, Sweden still had not seized the southernmost of its present provinces, but possessed almost all of modern-day Finland and Estonia as well as Ingria and Karelia.

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  Vasa's port side

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  A model showing a cross section of Vasa's hull, illustrating the shallow hold and two gun decks

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  The inside of the lower gun deck looking toward the bow. The interior of the ship does not contain any guns or any of the original contents and is currently fitted with modern lighting and other safety features.

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  A 1:10 model in the Vasa Museum showing how the sailing rig would look with all of the 10 sails set.

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  A double block recovered from Vasa. It is made entirely of ash for both the shell and the sheaves. Though it is not visible in this picture, this example had the less common wrought iron strop to attach it to a fixed surface or the object being moved.

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  The 1:10 museum model showing the richly decorated transom with miniature sculptures painted in what is believed to be the original color scheme.

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  Full-scale, painted modern replicas of some of the ship's sculptures exhibited at the Vasa Museum.

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  A recreation of the color pigments that were used by the naval shipyard where the ship was built; exhibit at the Vasa Museum.