Around 4:00 PM on August 10th, 1628
the warship Vasa set sail in Stockholm harbo
r on its maiden voyage as the newest
ship in the Royal Swedish Navy. After sailing about
1300 meters, a light gust of wind
caused the Vasa to heel over on its side. Water poured
in through the gun portals and the
ship sank with aloss of 53 lives. The Vasa lay in shallow waters of Stockholm
harbor (at 32 meters depth) and after initial attempts to salvage it failed, was
largely forgotten until it was located by Anders Franzen in 1956 .
In 1961, 333 years after it sank,
the Vasa was raised and was so well preserved that it
could float after the gun portals
were sealed and water and mud were pumped from it.
Today it is housed in a museum
specially built for it, near the site where it foundered [6].
That the Vasa is so remarkably well
preserved is based on two factors: the sheltered harbor in which the Vasa lay,
and the salinity of the water in the Baltic Sea. Because it lay in a sheltered
harbor, the Vasa was protected from storms that would otherwise have
destroyed it in the shallow waters
of the Baltic Sea. Because of the salinity of the water,
worms that would otherwise have
infested and destroyed the wooden vessel are not present in the Baltic. The
sinking of the Vasa was a major disaster for Sweden. The country was at war
with Poland and the ship was needed for the war effort.
No expense had been spared. The Vasa
was the most expensive project ever undertaken
by Sweden and it was a total loss. The
ship’s captain survived the sinking and was immediately thrown into jail.
On August 11th, the day after the
disaster, a preliminary board of inquiry was convened.
Incompetence of the captain and crew
was ruled out and the captain was set free. A
formal hearing was conducted in
September of 1628. No exact reason for the sinking was
determined and no one was blamed.
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