No. 03 · Swedish warship, 64 guns
Vasa
Lost 10 August 1628 · Stockholm harbour, Baltic · 32 m
Sweden's grand new warship sailed about 1,300 metres on her maiden voyage before capsizing in Stockholm harbour, and now stands almost whole in a museum.
- Flag
- Kingdom of Sweden
- Built
- Skeppsgården, Stockholm, 1626–1628
- Length
- 47.5 m hull; about 69 m with bowsprit
- Aboard
- about 150 (sources range 150–250)
- Lives lost
- about 30 (contemporary letters say 30 to 50)
- Survived
- most of those aboard
- Position
- 59°19.3′ N, 18°05.9′ E
- Lies at
- 32 m, clay
Vasa was meant to be the pride of Gustavus Adolphus's navy: two decks of heavy guns and hundreds of painted carvings. She was also dangerously top-heavy, and everyone who mattered had seen the warning signs.
Cause. Top-heavy and unstable, she was heeled over by a gust of wind until water flooded in through her open lower gun ports.
Plate · elevation, starboard side
The ship
Load waterline
Elevation, starboard side
The last hours
Ship and depth drawn to the same scale.
-
Summer 1628
A stability test
Thirty men ran back and forth across her deck to test her. The test was stopped after three runs because she rolled so much. She was not delayed.
-
10 August, about 16:00–17:00
Departure
Vasa cast off below the royal palace in front of a large crowd. Aboard were crew, and wives, children and guests who were to leave at Vaxholm.
-
Afternoon
Warped along the quay
With the wind from the south, the crew hauled her along the waterfront on anchors to Slussen, where she picked up the current.
-
Afternoon
Four sails and a salute
Four of her ten sails were set and a salute was fired. Under the Södermalm heights a light gust heeled her to port, and she slowly came upright.
-
Minutes later
The second gust
Off Tegelviken a stronger gust laid her over. Water poured in through the open lower ports; orders to free the sheets and shut the ports came too late.
-
Minutes later
In 32 metres
She went down with her topmasts still showing above the surface. Many were picked up by boats or swam to Beckholmen. About 30 people lost their lives, most of them trapped below.
-
September 1628
No one to blame
A court of inquiry questioned the captain and the builders and found no one guilty: the ship had been built to approved measurements and to the king's wishes.
Elevation, starboard side, as found.Cy clay · 32 m
As found
Where she lies
She sat upright and almost complete in the clay, preserved by cold, brackish Baltic water where shipworm cannot live. Her sterncastle had partly collapsed and many carvings had fallen into the mud. She broke the surface on 24 April 1961; about 98% of the ship is original.
Found
Located in August 1956 by Anders Franzén, an amateur naval historian, after years in the archives and with a home-made coring probe. Navy divers dug tunnels under the hull for lifting cables.
Today
Raised in 1961 and displayed in the Vasa Museum, Stockholm.