Princess Hedvig Sophia

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The Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia was a Swedish warship of the early modern period , which was badly damaged in 1715 during the Great Northern War in the sea ​​battle of Fehmarn and as a result abandoned.

construction

Originally Drottning Ulrika Eleonora after the Swedish Queen Ulrika Eleonora called ship was built in 1692 and was one of the first of the great ships built on the newly established Karlskronaer Naval Shipyard . It displaced about 1650 tons, had a length of 160 Swedish feet (equivalent to 47.25 m) and was intended for armament with 80 (according to other sources 76) cannons . The builder of the Drottning Ulrika Eleonora was Francis Sheldon the Younger, who belonged to an English family that employed numerous shipbuilders in the Swedish service. However, the ship shows structural features of Dutch ships.

The Drottning Ulrika Eleonora had been reported by Hans Wachtmeister in his capacity as Admiralty Councilor to King Karl XI as the new ship of the largest type. With the construction of further new ships, the name Drottning Ulrika Eleonora was transferred to another ship on September 30, 1694 and the now former Drottning Ulrika Eleonora was given the name Wenden . In another major exchange of ship names in the Swedish fleet one month later, the Wenden was renamed in Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia after Hedwig Sophia of Sweden , the eldest daughter of the king, the wife of Duke Friedrich IV of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf .

Downfall

The Swedish flagship Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia was lost in the sea battle near Fehmarn (1715)

She was used in the Great Northern War under the name of Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia . She took part in the deployment against Copenhagen in 1700 and in a naval battle off Køge Bay in 1710 . As the flagship of a Swedish association consisting of four ships of the line and two frigates , she cruised near the Danish coast in the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1715 under the leadership of Rear Admiral Carl Hans Wachtmeister . The ship was designed for a crew of 430 men; because of the plague raging in Northern Europe, only 345 men were on board.

The Swedish federation was formed by a Danish federation consisting of eleven ships on April 24, 1715 and was involved in the loss-making sea ​​battle near Fehmarn . The Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia received five hits below the waterline with the first volley. During the night, the severely damaged Swedish ships escaped to the west. Since an outbreak was not possible due to unfavorable winds, Wachtmeister decided to sink his own ships at the exit of the Kiel Fjord so as not to let them fall into Danish hands. The masts were cut and all cannons and projectiles thrown overboard before the Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia was allowed to run aground. The other ships, however, came under Danish control because the frigate captain Peter Wessel saw through the plan and threatened to kill the Swedish seafarers if their ships were scuttled.

Wreckage

Although a professional diver had already discovered two different cannons in 1970, the remains of the wreck of the Princess Hedvig Sophia were only discovered by divers at a depth of six meters in 2008 and identified by archaeologists the following year. In 2010 and 2011, the wreck was further examined in cooperation with the Institute for Maritime Archeology at the University of Esbjerg in southern Denmark , the Institute for Prehistory and Protohistory at Kiel University and the Schleswig-Holstein State Monuments Office . It should not be lifted and has now been placed under monument protection. It is located in the sea area in front of Bülk near Strande . The path to the point where the ship was sunk is lined with a one-and-a-half-kilometer metal trail of cannons and projectiles that were thrown overboard.

literature

  • Svenska Flottan's Historia. Örlogsflottan i ord och picture. Fran dess Grundläggning under Gustav Vasa fram till vara dagar . Vol. 2: 1680-1814. Malmo 1943.
  • Erik Norberg (ed.): Karlskronavarvets Historia . Vol. 1. Karlskrona 1993, ISBN 91-630-1972-8 .
  • Hj. Börjeson, P. Holck, Walther Vogel, Hans Szymanski: Swedish ships 1650–99, Danish-Norwegian ships 1650–1700, German ships 1643–1700 (Society for the Nautical Research occasional publications, 5). London 1936.
  • Jens Auer (Ed.): Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia - Fieldwork Report 2010 . University of Southern Denmark, Maritime Archeology Program; Esbjerg Maritime Archeology Reports 3, ISBN 978-87-992214-5-5
  • Jens Auer, Holger Schweitzer: The wreck of Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia: The archeology and history of a Swedish ship of the lineduring the Great Northern War. In: Skyllis, 12th vol. (2013), H. 1, pp. 57-63.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c Jens Auer (Ed.): Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia - Fieldwork Report 2010 . University of Southern Denmark, Maritime Archeology Program; Esbjerg Maritime Archeology Reports 3, ISBN 978-87-992214-5-5 , p. 5.
  2. ↑ After Glete currently shipbuilding nor Francis Sheldon's father was Charles in charge of design and construction supervision. Francis was a master student at the time, but was not allowed to hold a management position alone. Jan Glete: Swedish Naval Administration 1521–1721: Resource Flows and Organizational Capabilities. Leiden / Boston 2010, p. 343 f.
  3. ↑ a b Jens Auer (Ed.): Prinsessan Hedvig Sophia - Fieldwork Report 2010 . University of Southern Denmark, Maritime Archeology Program; Esbjerg Maritime Archeology Reports 3, ISBN 978-87-992214-5-5 , p. 3.
  4. ^ Working group for maritime and limnic archeology: The wreck of the Hedwig Sophia 1 , accessed on October 31, 2014
  5. ↑ Julika Pohlke: dive to battle. Welt am Sonntag, Hamburg May 24, 2015

Coordinates: 54 ° 27 ′ 27.7 ″  N , 10 ° 11 ′ 45.2 ″  E