Restored 15th Century Ship, 8/16/1993 One of Sweden's Attractions

Sunk In 1628 On Its
Maiden Voyage

By Bob Van Leer

(STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN, Aug. 16, 1993) - Sweden is the most populous of the Scandinavian nations with a population of approximately 8.5 million. Our cruise ship, Crown Odyssey, arrived here this morning for a short visit.

King Gustav Vasa is credited with fashioning the modern Swedish state in the 16th century breaking away from Denmark. The city of Stockholm was founded by merchants from Lubeck Germany, in the 12th century. Today's population is about 1.5 million. The old town was built on an island in the estuary and is now a restored historical center.

  Betty and I were in Stockholm in 1989 and made a tour of the city then. Some of the most famous landmarks, in addition to Old Town, are the City Hall, where the Nobel prize ceremony takes place, the Skansen, an open air museum - amusement park - zoo - on one of the numerous islands in Stockholm and the Royal Palace.

ANCIENT SHIP
  One of the city's best known exhibits is the 15th century sailing ship, Vasa, which lay at the bottom of Stockholm harbor for almost 330 years. It is a classic case of a military boondoggle. King Gustav ordered the Vasa, and several other ships, built. The Vasa was the largest, most expensive ship of its time.
  It took three years to build and construction was expedited to meet the demands of King Gustav who was engaged in a war in Poland. From the laying of the keel the Vasa was a disaster waiting to happen. The design was fatally flawed. There were a number of built in flaws which were not helped by a directive from the king to add a second gun deck when the ship was under construction.

  The Vasa was top heavy. This can be compensated for by addition of ballast to the bottom of the ship. But with its design, if more ballast was added, the lower gun ports would have been under water. The ship was large, even by today's standards. The total length was 69 meters. From the hull to the prow it measures 47.5 meters and has a width of 11.7 meters. The stern, higher than the bow, was 19.3 meters, about as high as a six story building. It drew 4.8 meters of water and had a displacement of 1210 tons.

  The captain apparently knew the ship could not safely sail. But it was commissioned by the king and was already built. So he sailed it on Aug. 10, 1628. It was a festive occasion. Some of the crew had wives and children aboard. Gun ports were open to show the golden lion heads on the inside of the gun port covers.

  The Vasa sank on its maiden voyage. It traveled less than a mile and the voyage lasted 20 minutes. A squall heeled the ship over. The captain managed to right it and continued on. But a second squall heeled it over again, water poured in the lower gun ports and the Vasa went to the bottom with the loss of an estimated 50 lives.

  Loss of life was held down because the ship had on only part of its complement and was sailing to pick up the rest. The ship was built to have a ship's company of 345 sailors and a marine force of 100 men. An inquest was held and there was compromising information against three men. One of these happened to be the king and no record of a verdict has been found.

  The Vasa went down in 90 feet of water with the tops of its masts still showing. The masts were cut off to hide the embarrassing spectacle.

  In 1634 a German company salvaged all but two of the ship's 64 cannon using a diving bell. No one wants to be associated with such a debacle and memory of the sunken ship gradually was lost. The ship was found by research by Anders Franzen. He theorized the Baltic Sea was probably the only sea in the world where big ships might be found intact. The Baltic is brackish, rather than salty, and does not have shipworms, the mollusks that destroy wood.

  Franzen began his research in the early 1950s and by 1953 decided the Vasa should be somewhere in Stockholm harbor. He found the ship in 1956 standing in mud on an even keel sunk in mud up to its lower gun decks. The Vasa was lifted from the mud in 1959 and moved, still underwater, to a shallower site. By 1961 it was made watertight and brought to the surface in May and floated to a drydock.

  It was kept in a temporary berth and the new Vasa museum was opened in June, 1990, by the Swedish king and is now one of Sweden's greatest tourist attractions. A guide said 95% of the ship on display is original including the elaborate carved wood decorations. Even a longboat was found. The wood was preserved with a spray of polyethylene glycol and the museum is free of sunlight and temperature controlled.

RANDOM NOTES
  A cab driver in his early 20s told me unemployment among people his age is about 25%. A few years ago it was perhaps 2% but then the economy crashed.

  Across the channel from where our ship is docked is the entertainment park, the Skansen. Adjacent to it is a ship repair area with two large cranes that sit on four legs. Someone with a sense of humor has painted the cranes to look like giraffes.

  Ted Turner's CNN (Cable News Network) is changing the way the world receives news. The CNN International Service is now heard and seen around the world. On this trip we have seen it on the ship and in our Moscow hotel. DBS (direct broadcast satellite) TV has come to Europe and in all countries, except Russia, we have passed through the tiny satellite antennas needed for DBS can be seen on city dwellings and farmhouses. This is the same type of satellite reception Coos-Curry Electric is bringing to Curry and Coos counties.

  Our stay in Stockholm was only five hours and at 2 p.m. we got underway for Oslo, Norway, 695 nautical miles away. All day tomorrow we will be at sea.
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