Princess Sophia Albertina

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Prinsessan Sophia Albertina was a Swedish ship of the line thatcrashed and sankoff the Dutch island of Texel on the night of August 20-21, 1781. The identity of the ship was reconstructed during archaeological investigations in 2004.

Portrait of the Swedish master shipbuilder Gilbert Sheldon (1710–1794)
Report in the Leeuwarder Courant on August 29, 1781 of the sinking of the Swedish warship

The ship

In Karlskrona , on the island Lindholmen, the ship on September 28, 1764 rolled off the stack . The keel-laying of the hull was started on March 12, 1760 under the shipbuilder Gilbert Sheldon. Originally designed for 62 cannons, the ship of the line had a length between perpendiculars of 160 Swedish feet, a width of 42 feet and a depth in space of 21.5 feet. There are 24 24-pounders and 12-pounders on each of the two battery decks, and another 12 6-pounders on the forecastle and half-deck.

The ship was named after the fourth child and only daughter Sophie Albertine of the Swedish royal couple.

The downfall

During the so-called fourth sea war against England from 1780 to 1784, English ships also looted neutral ships. That is why there was the declaration on armed neutrality , which Sweden also joined. To implement the project, a squadron of ten ships of the line and two frigates was put together in Karlskrona in 1781. To say goodbye to the squadron, King Gustav III. Arrived on June 4th and a salute was given accordingly . However, there was a fire on board that affected the entire battery deck . The powder supplies provided by the guns threatened to explode. It was only thanks to the courageous throwing of the barrels that the ship escaped a catastrophe. Eleven sailors drowned and an officer and a NCO were burned to death. Nevertheless, after five days of repairs, the ship was able to set sail. It should join the squadron on the way to Cape Finisterre . It was planned to give escort between the Oresund and the Mediterranean .

On the way back, the weather was worse. First a storm dispersed the ship from the convoy and then a thick fog prevented the situation from being clarified. Finally she ran aground on August 20th. The entire starboard side was torn open and even the port side broke to pieces a few hours later. Despite capping all masts in the hope of lightening the ship and getting away from the bottom, the ship could no longer be saved. After the first grounding is said to have happened around 9 p.m., the ship went down sometime at 2 or 3 a.m. The next day survivors were rescued by dinghies of a Dutch warship, holding themselves above the water on flotsam; some were also able to reach the shore by swimming. A total of 31 out of 450 people survived: a helmsman, a boatswain, two corporals, five volunteers, three soldiers and 19 ordinary crew members. Neither Captain Ziervogel nor Captain Wetzell nor any other officer survived. The other ships in the convoy under Johan Gustaf Malmskiöld were in the meantime already at the height of today's Schleswig-Holstein . The Leeuwarder Courant mentions Haaks near Texel as the place of ruin , but what is meant is Noorderhaaks .

The sinking hit the people in and around Karlskrona very much, as many seamen came from this region. An investigation into the causes of the sinking has been initiated. However, the files on this were lost in a major city fire in 1790.

Archaeological research

The first report of the discovery of a wreck at this point ( 53 ° 1 ′ 13.6 ″  N , 4 ° 36 ′ 3.4 ″  E, coordinates: 53 ° 1 ′ 13.6 ″  N , 4 ° 36 ′ 3.4 ″  O ) dates from 1989. A fishing net was hooked there and a diver was supposed to examine this place. He reported his find to the responsible authorities, who first recorded it as Noorderhaaks 18 and later corrected it as Noorderhaaks 10 . Independently of this, the then unknown wreck was dived for video recordings in 1996 , by recreational divers in 1997 and again in 2002. At least 7 artillery pieces were recovered on several visits . But during the visit in 2002 the divers reported the discovery of a ship's bell with the inscription G: MEIJER FEC: IHOLM: 1738 . In response to the divers' inquiries, Stockholm gave them the assumption that it might be the PRINSESSAN SOPHIA ALBERTINA, which went down there on August 20, 1781. After this third report of a wreck at this point, the Dutch authority Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed recorded the wreck in its objects to be examined, as it was located within the territorial waters .

In 2004, the wreck lying at a depth of 17 to 20 m was examined on 17 days with 8 divers and a total of almost 160 hours. The condition of the wreck is described as poor to poor. Only the bottom shell has been preserved and the individual parts were scattered on the ground. The reason for this is described as a natural cause, as on the one hand this region has tides and on the other hand the shoal has moved over the centuries.

In the report published in 2012 about the examinations on the wreck, all the recovered finds are documented and further details are published. Drawings were made, photos and films were made, all objects were measured and documented. The finds to be recovered were recovered solely according to the criteria of dating and identifying the wreck. These are stored in the Maritime Depot in Lelystad and can be researched.

Results

The wreck remains aground and is not protected from further destruction by humans or nature. A total of 68 items were recovered, 35 of them made of metal. A package of thin copper plates suggests that this ship may have already been coppered. Nothing of this can be found on the wreck itself, as the outer planks were particularly poorly preserved. Of the 16 documented cannons, some had an F on the trunnion, as a hallmark of the Finspång foundry and known as Finbanker . Two guns recovered earlier have been identified as hulbunds and originating from Sweden. Some pieces had a special shape that was not used until after 1725. Surprisingly, most of the pottery finds are from the 19th and 20th centuries. The dating of wood samples using dendrochronology yielded felling dates of 1760 ± 6 years. The ballast found was made of cast iron and was used in Sweden from 1748.

literature

  • Erik Norberg (ed.): Karlskronavarvets Historia. Vol. 1. Karlskrona 1993, ISBN 91-630-1972-8 .
  • ABM Overmeer: ​​Een Zweeds oorlogsschip in Nederlandse wateren. Een waardestellend onderzoek op scheepswrak Sophia Albertina. Amersfoort 2012. ISBN 9789057991905

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