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| The sinking of the Vasa on August 10th 1628 |
February 23rd 2004, Monday.
In a nutshell, the Vasa sank because it was top-heavy. It needed more ballast, more than double what it actually had. But the problem was, it had no more room.
As the wind hit its sail, it leaned to one side. Water entered the gunports (it was the first warship to have two levels of gunports, through which the soldiers onboard shot canons). Problem was, the lower level was too close to the waterline.
It was able to right itself, but water was already pouring into the ship. In about 30 minutes it sank.
I thought, ‘OK, it was horrible engineering… oops!’ As part of being top-heavy, the hull was way too small and flat. It needed to be angled into the water more.
Even though three men where brought to court, including the builder or engineer (I believe) no one was convicted.
But here’s another key piece of this: the stern, in particular, has several elaborate sculptures. And apparently ‘they’ kept changing the design and adding to the ship. After all, it was a warship, and as such it needed to represent the country. I gathered King Gustav II Adophus (or representatives) pressured the designers et al. to make sure it was literally an ornate ship.
The builder or designer may really not be at fault: Apparently they were quite concerned about whether the ship was stable. So they did a test: They had 30 men run back and forth together across the deck. They found out that it could tip over, not that it actually would (because of course they didn’t know that).
Well, perhaps the test wasn’t entirely conclusive. Or perhaps they were not entirely willing to admit that it was conclusively not stable. At that point, the inauguration of the ship was already set: there was no longer any changing of the design or halting the inauguration. The nation was watching. The King was in Poland, and I imagined he was ‘watching’ from there.
So, you have frontline people who have a pulse on this. They apparently communicated their findings and concerns to the next level supervisor, who may have been quite hesitant to do anything with these, given what was already set. Bottomline: Some critical findings and concerns never made it to the top people.
30-50 people died on the ship. It was found by Andrea Franzen in 1953, and salvaged (raised to the surface, finally) in 1961. They found the skeletons of about 20 people still onboard. Man, that must’ve been quite freaky and horrible for their present day descendants! I’m sure there are some poignant stories coming out of that one.
The ship was officially made available for public viewing in 1988, then brought to its present day site at the Vasa Museet in 1990. So it took nearly 30 years to restore it and prepare it for exhibition.
About 450 people were intended to be on the ship: 150 sailors, 300 soldiers. The quarters on any of the levels were very small and the accommodations were quite austere and harsh. There were only two latrines, e.g., and one of them was in the senior officers’ quarters, which at least had benches along the wall that they could fashion into a bed. Otherwise up to six sailors and soldiers had to sleep on the floor between canons. Man, we entered a replica of one of these rooms, and it was tight quarters for about 20 people on tour. In fact, 60 people were expected to live and work there 24/7!
Of course the Vasa never had to ‘see’ these tight living and working conditions actually in battle. But it was apparently the norm among Swedish warships.
The colors of the Vasa were quite varied and vibrant. Now because the waters of the Baltic Sea is brackish (not salty), apparently ships like the Vasa were preserved quite well. So to the naked eye, there was little or no sign of any color. But as restoration staff or researchers did closer analyses, they found several different colors: reds, gold (gilded frames), blue, green, etc.
The museum has an interesting exhibit, where a replica of the stern hangs high on the wall. Then light of particular colors would shine on specific sculptures of the stern, as the restorers could identify what was what.
The many figures and objects, as sculptures, were symbolic of something: two mermaid-like looking people, because they provided safety over the waterways. What an unfortunately failed symbol that was!
Some were really scary-looking, e.g., worms coming out of one figure’s eyes, nose, and mouth, apparently in an attempt to literally scare off enemies.
One figure wore a hat that apparently was a mockery of Polish Catholics’ religion.
The coat-of-arms includes a sheef of wheat… in fact, Vasa is a sheef of wheat. Apparently the royal family felt that it needed to be non-military (I may not be recalling this point accurately.
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