Vasa: a Warship in a Building!

Port side of the Warship Vasa

Stockholm has a unique museum that every visitor to this city should see. The Vasamuseet on the city's Djurgården island houses a HUGE 17th century Swedish warship that sank on August 10, 1628, at the start of her maiden voyage. It is a splendid ship, made from the wood of more than 1,000 oak trees. Vasa measures 226 feet long by 172 feet tall. It's quite an experience, entering the cavernous room where the enormous ship is housed. On first seeing Vasa I thought of the legendary ghost ship The Flying Dutchman. The low lighting in the museum added to the spookiness. 

Vasa's richly ornamented stern

King Gustvus Adolphus

In January 1625 Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus contracted with a Swedish shipyard to have the great warship Vasa built. Construction started in 1626 and was completed two years later. Unfortunately, Vasa's design was flawed. She was top heavy, and failed her first stability test. But that didn't stop her from sailing. It's incredible that she was allowed to leave the harbor, despite the doubts of some of the people in charge. 

Vasa sank twenty minutes after setting sail on that fateful summer day. A gust of wind filled her sails and caused the ship to heel sharply to the port side. The gun ports were still open and the cannons were out (after firing a salute as the ship left Stockholm). Water rushed in through the open gun ports, heeling the ship further. Vasa quickly sank in 105 feet of water, less than 400 feet from shore. At least 30 of the estimated 150 people on board perished in the wreck.


Vasa and most of its contents remained mired in the mud for 333 years. In 1956 an amateur archaeologist named Anders Franzen located the wreck. It took a recovery team five years to prepare the ship for its resurrection from the sea bottom. On April 24, 1961 the Warship Vasa was raised again in Stockholm's harbor. The story of reassembling all its pieces and preserving Vasa for all of us to see is amazing. You can learn more about it here: http://www.pkvirtual.com/virtual/prace/vasa1.pdf

Vasa's brightly colored 1:10 scale model

This richly ornamented regalskepp (royal ship) was to be a symbol of Swedish naval power. The many sculptures that decorate its exterior were meant to glorify the Swedish monarch and to intimidate Sweden's enemies. The colorful paint that covered the ship is gone now, but a scale model placed near the original ship shows what archaeologists believe Vasa looked like in 1628.

There were several levels of balconies surrounding the immense ship that made it easy to view its details from every angle. On one of the upper levels we stood at the balcony rail, seeing the original wooden sculptures of the stern up close. Displayed on a wall behind us were painted reproductions of the same sculptures. So beautiful!

Painted reproductions of Vasa's elaborate ornamentation

The officer's cabin

We arrived at the museum just one hour before closing, and weren't able to see all the exhibits related to the great ship. Most of our time there was spent circling the ship on the different balcony levels, drinking in the amazing spectacle. There was a full scale reproduction of one of the cannon decks that we could walk around in, and of the officer's cabin. 

Glass cases on one level held items found with the ship- ceramic pots and bowls, pewter tankards, cutlery, weapons- all sorts of things that outfitted the ship for its first voyage. Remarkably, some items of clothing survived in a closed trunk for the three-plus centuries that it was submerged, as did leather shoes that were found on the skeleton of a sailor who was trapped under a cannon. These were the things that reminded us that this wonderful museum is the result of a terrible tragedy.