Hello to all my dear friends, today I want to talk about a wonder I was lucky to visit and enjoy ... the Vasa vessel, The only XVII°'s century vessel arrived to our day...
The Vasa vessel in the intentions of King Gustav II Adolf Vasa was destined to become the symbol of Sweden's military power that at that time was involved in the 30-year war. It took two years to build it, a warship with 64 cannons. The project and implementation had no limitations on costs.
The project was called the Dutchman Henrik Hybertsson, an experienced shipbuilder. 69 meters long and built in the Dutch style with shallow hull and flat base, the ship was "customized" on a specific request from the King who was an active part in the design of the vessel. For the King's wish, the two bridges that were housed in the cannons had been reinforced to withstand the cannons, and a large stern castle had been added, thus increasing stability problems.
Basically the balance of the ship and the layout of the loads were wrong. In attempting to correct the balance of the vessel, the ballast at the bottom of the ship was increased to lower the vessel's floating line by bringing it very close to the lower line of the cannons.
At that time in Sweden there were no paper projects or mathematical calculations for the realization of ships. In order to verify stability, "stability tests" were carried out during construction. The test consisted of running thirty sailors from side to side of the ship and after only three laps the test was interrupted because it failed. Despite the failure of the test, the King, who with this work wanted to demonstrate the Swedish military force, sent a letter by pressing on the vessel's launch, so that the ship, despite its clear stability problems, was declared ready.
For the day of the inauguration, the weight of the ship increased further because of all the decorative bulkings that intentions had to be removed at the end of the parade.
On the evening of August 10, 1628, the imposing warship Vasa took off in its inaugural voyage in the waters of Stockholm under the eyes of the 10,000 inhabitants of Stockholm who were on the shore of the harbor. The sea mirror in front of the harbor was crowded with small boats of curious people who hoped to enjoy the ship's launch show closely. His 300 sailors had permission to bring their relatives. The mission was to reach Poland where a bloody battle would be fought ....
The vessel was in great pomp, complete with all that was needed to show the greatness of the kingdom of Sweden and of his King Gustav II Adolf of the Vasa dynasty.
After shooting with a cannon, Vasa explained the sails and took off from the harbor. Everything seemed to work well. The wind, which until then had seemed almost null, gave a nose that drove the ship, but immediately the helmsman managed to straighten it, unfortunately, however, could not do the same with the second wind funnel that inclined your Vasa so much that The water came from the cannon doors that Captain Söfring Hansson had left open to magnify the vessel, so that the ship collapsed in a very short time. The ship had sunk after only 1300 meters when it was still in the Stockholm port and settled about 32 meters deep ...
Most of the crew were saved but some thirty sailors died. Most of them were inside the vessel when they started sinking and could not get out. After the recovery of the wreck, the skeletons of about 15 people were recovered.
In 1956, after more than 300 years, an archeologist in the wreckage Carl Gustav Anders Franzén along with the scuba diver Per Edvin Fälting managed to recover the wreckage which, thanks to the particularly low salinity of the waters of Stockholm, was in excellent condition.
With the recovery of the ship in 1961, the restoration works that began in the 1990s brought the wreck to being exposed in the museum of the same name that was built around it, located in the Djurgården area in the city of Stockholm...