- Vasa, in the Maritime Museum, Stockholm - Georg Dembowski
Vasa’s naval history was pitifully short. On August 10, 1628, the 165 ft. three master, with a stern 50 ft. high, a sail area of 12,375 ft. and a displacement of 1,400 tons, keeled over after sailing a few hundred yards on her maiden voyage. From there, Vasa went down with sails up and flags flying.
The Vasa, a Valuable Swedish Vessel
Vasa was a significant loss for the Swedish navy. On board when she sank was the largest single collection of copper mint coins ever discovered in Sweden and sixty-four highly decorated and very valuable bronze one- and two-ton guns.
Attempts to salvage the ship, which began at once, were foiled by the limitations of 17th century diving equipment and techniques. The one exception was the astonishing success of a Swedish engineer, Hans von Theileben, who in 1664 used a primitive diving bell to bring up fifty of the ship’s guns from 100 ft. of bitterly cold, mud-blackened water.
Afterwards, Vasa was left to settle into the darkness of the harbor bottom until the early 1950s, when the marine archaeologist Anders Franzen began to search for the warship with grapnels and wire sweeps. After the usual yield of rusty cookers, old bicycles,and dead cats, Franzen at last produced more hopeful evidence in 1956 when 17-inch core samples brought up pieces of black oak.
The Vasa Rediscovered
This indicated a large ship of considerable age lying on the bottom. Swedish navy divers confirmed that it was Vasa, resting on an even keel, packed 20 ft. deep in blue clay and black semi-organic mud. A multi-million dollar project to salvage the warship began in 1957. Working in total darkness 120 ft. down, divers forced six tunnels under the Vasa’s keel with compressed air recoil-less jet nozzles attached to six inch pipes. This dangerous work was not completed until the summer of 1959.
In August of that year, 1,600 yards of six inch cable were drawn through the tunnels up to the surface and across the decks of two floating pontoons, the Oden and Frigg which between them had a total lifting capacity of 2,000 tons. The cables were tightened and locked, and the pontoons were slowly pumped out.
The Vasa Rises Towards the Surface
On the afternoon of August 20, Vasa began rose in one piece from the harbor bottom. Her underwater weight of 700 tons imposed a load of over 29 tons on each of the twenty--four cables.
Then, there began the careful patient process of towing the ship, with heavy oak hull encased in a cradle of cables, towards shallower water. Vasa was moved about 1.640 ft. in four weeks, and hitched up by eighteen lifting operations from a depth of 100 ft. to 50 ft. down, just off the island of Kastellholm.
There, Vasa remained submerged for nineteen more months while divers worked to seal and strengthen her for the final journey back to the surface. There were thousands of holes left by rusted bolts to be plugged. The gun ports were sealed and the hull reinforced to render it watertight.
The Vasa Revealed
The warship was eased up into the bright spring air of Stockholm harbor on April 24 1961, resting on a nest of nine-inch cables attached by link chains to hydraulic jacks working from the sides of Oden and Frigg.
The first distinguishable features to emerge were two bitts near the foremast which had tops carved in the form of heads.
On April 26 1961, the top deck appeared and over the next week, Vasa rose up slowly until she was high enough to clear the entrance to the King Gustav Adolph V dry dock on the island of Beckholmen. Here, a specially built concrete pontoon was waiting to support her. On May 4, Vasa entered the dry dock listing to port, but floating on her own keel.
The Preservation of the Vasa
The first and most urgent task was to prevent the saturated wood from shrinking and cracking as it dried. This is why the Vasa was constantly sprayed by sprinklers while the preservation hall of concrete, steel, light metal and glass was built to encase her.
The more permanent method of preserving the wood of impressive carvings like the 10.75 ft. two-ton lion figurehead made of lime and the 23-inch high shields with the lion and three crowns of Sweden in high relief, was through immersion in a high molecular alcohol, ethlylene polyglycol.
Eventually, Vasa became the centerpiece of Stockholm’s Djurgarden museum, where she was first towed on her preservation pontoon in November 1961. There, exhibition lecture and film hall grew up around this fine treasure of marine archaeology, one of the oldest fully identified ships in the world.
Sources
Cederlund, Carl Olof and Hocker, Frederick M. Vasa I: The Archaeology of a Swedish Royal Ship of 1628 (Statens Maritima Museer (National Maritime Museum of Sweden)) Stockholm, Sweden) Language: English:ISBN-10: 9197465909/ISBN-13: 978-9197465908
The Vasa - The Royal Warship Vasa
Vasa Ship Museum, Stickholm, Sweden - Travel Photos by Galen R ...
Brenda Ralph Lewis - My interest in history dates from childhood. I am presently the author of 120 books and hundreds of articles, all on historical ...
