Vasa (ship)
 The Vasa in the Vasa Museum
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The Vasa (or Wasa ) was a Swedish galleon that was one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of its time. Already at the beginning of her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, the Vasa sank after only about 1300 meters of sailing in normal seas due to serious structural instability. After it was found in 1956 and salvaged in 1961, it was restored several times and can now be viewed in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm . The ship bears the name of the Swedish royal dynasty Wasa ( Swedish vasa ).
Historical background
From 1625, King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden had the warship Vasa built. It was intended to advance the interests of Lutheran Sweden against Catholic Poland during the Thirty Years' War . As a rising sea power, Sweden wanted above all to ensure the import of hemp from the Baltic States for the manufacture of ropes for new ships.
In addition to religious and strategic reasons for the war, there were also personal ones: Gustav II Adolf's father, Karl IX. , had his cousin, the Polish King Sigismund III. Wasa , previously ousted from the Swedish throne, which the latter now hoped to recapture.
The first order of the ship should be the blockade of the Vistula estuary near Gdansk .
The construction of the Vasa
The construction of the Vasa was also a prestige project for Sweden. It was armed with 64 cannons. The ship had a total length of 61 meters without bowsprit and lantern , a length between the stems of 47.5 meters, a keel length of 38.34 meters and was 11.3 meters wide with planking . It measured 52.2 meters from the underside of the keel to the flag button on the main mast . The total sail area was around 1,300 m² and the transom ended 15.2 meters above the water level with an aft draft of 4.8 meters.
shell
The Vasa was part of a larger order for two large and two small ships. The first large ship was the Tre Kronor (Three Crowns).
In 1625 about 1,000 oaks were felled for the construction of the Vasa . The carpenters walked through the forests of Södermanland with templates for the individual parts of the ship and selected suitable trees. The wood was brought to the Blasieholmen peninsula in what is now Stockholm's Norrmalm district, where construction began on January 1, 1626.
The shipbuilder in charge was the Dutchman Henrik Hybertsson (Hendrik Hybertszoon, † May 1627). At that time there were no plan drawings in their present form. Instead, traditional proportions were used, which should give a ship good properties. As requested at the start of construction, Hybertsson based himself on proportions for a single cannon deck.
According to a well-known legend, the evidence of which has never been proven, Gustav II Adolf found out that the Danish King Christian IV had a ship of similar size, the Santa Sophia, built. Therefore, in 1627, five months after the start of construction, he gave the order to install cannons in the same number and caliber on the upper battery deck as on the lower battery deck in order to further increase the firepower. As a result, however, the positional stability of the ship, which was based on the ballast stones in the hull, was largely lost and the ship became very heavy . Due to the increased mass and the resulting greater draft , the openings for the lower cannons came under the waterline even with a slight heel , with the increased center of gravity additionally increasing the heel caused by the wind or rudder position.
decoration
Over 700 statues, whose grimaceous faces demonstrate Sweden's strength and should humiliate and frighten the opponent, adorned the Vasa . It was a swarm of Roman warriors , lions, mermaids , fantasy figures and Greek deities. The figures were created in the Renaissance and early Baroque styles . The inspiration came mainly from the Bible , but also from Greek and Roman legends and from glorified Swedish royal family trees.
The color of the Vasa was unknown for a long time after the salvage. Investigations carried out from 1990 to 1999 under the direction of Peter Tångeberg show that the figures were painted in bright bright colors. For this purpose, the figures were examined under a scanning electron microscope for traces of pigment particles or certain binders. For example, blue could be seen under the scanning electron microscope at the break line of the glass crystals: Schmalt , which was very cheap to produce, was used, which gives a color like RAF blue and is particularly lightfast. In the course of the research, comparative studies with altars from that time were also carried out.
crew
The crew of the Vasa consisted of 437 men. From 1628 there is a proposal how the crew should be divided:
- Officers : captain (1), lieutenants (2)
- NCOs : Upper Schiffer (1), under Schiffer (1), boatswain (1), Hochbootsmannsmaat (1), mates (2), Quartiermeister (4), head Gunner (1) master- (1)
- Craftsmen and skilled workers: carpenters (4), boatmen (2), boatmen's mates ( 4), cooks (1), bottlers (1)
- Common Sailors (90)
- Gunner (20)
- Soldiers (300)
At the time of the accident, there were no soldiers on board.
The fall of the Vasa
First, the Vasa was transferred from the shipyard to the shore in front of the royal Tre Kronor castle . The fleet chief, Vice Admiral Klas Fleming, had the ship set up and a test carried out to test the stability of the ship. It consisted of 30 crew members running from one side of the ship to the other. The ship swayed so much that it was decided to stop the experiment.
Despite this problem, the Vasa lifted anchor on August 10, 1628 under Captain Söfring Hansson Jute. Four sails were set and the salute fired. One of the old sources states that the ship had a threatening lean angle for the first few meters despite the low wind. The first strong gust of wind caused the ship to capsize about 1,300 meters after take-off. An estimated thirty to fifty people died in the process. All in all, the journey of the Vasa only took about 20 minutes.
Court process
Immediately after the sinking, a trial was opened against the allegedly guilty. First the Reichsrat led the investigation, and from September 5th a separate court was appointed. Little is known about the members of the Court of Justice, but the fact that a member of the State Council, two captains, the Lord Mayor of Stockholm, the Chancellor's brother, two other notaries and an entrepreneur were involved can be found in the files. There were a total of sixteen members, six of whom were Imperial Councilors. The chairman was the Reichsadmiral Carl Carlsson Gyllenhielm .
The following persons were summoned: Captain Söfring Hansson, General Feldzeugmeister Eric Jönsson, Lieutenant Peter Gierdsson, Sailing Master Jöran Mattson, Boatswain Per Bertilsson, Shipbuilder Hein Jacobsson, the brother of the late shipbuilder and businessman Arent Hybertsson de Groot and Johan Isbrandsson, who was probably a kind of royal shipyard supervisor was.
In the course of the investigation, the top plumpness and narrow width of the trunk were identified as the causes of the sinking. A single culprit, however, could not be identified; the designer Hybertsson had died before the ship was completed. The trial did not result in a conviction.
Recovery attempts
Immediately after the sinking, first attempts were made to raise the ship as a whole. An Englishman named Jan Bulmer received the first salvage license in Sweden. Despite support from the fleet, it was not possible to raise the wreck. Each time the reels jumped out of the blocks or the cables and anchors tore. A large number of adventurers and treasure hunters from all over Europe went to the Reichsrat for a license. It was only after more than ten years that interest slowly ebbed and for almost ten more years there was silence. With Alexander Forbes the series of rescue attempts began again. The Englishman in Swedish army service claimed to be able to lift all kinds of ships. As a non-specialist, he passed the twelve-year license on to business partners. After her death he gave it to a syndicate in 1656 to which the Scottish diver Jacob Maule and the Swedish Colonel Hans Albrecht von Treileben belonged. He managed to acquire a salvage license, which did not include the Stockholm port area. He successfully recovered cannons from the wrecks of the Brederode , the Sancta Sophia and the Swedish ship Resande Man . As a result, he was finally able to acquire the required license in 1663 and from October to investigate the place where the Vasa fell . His divers in diving bells managed to recover 53 bronze cannon barrels from the wreck . Treileben ended this task in 1665. The masts that still protruded from the water and hindered shipping were cut a few years later (the hull was deep enough not to restrict shipping). With the lifting of the last pipe in 1683, the wreck disappeared from the public's consciousness.
The recovery of the Vasa
The marine archaeologist Anders Franzén has been looking for the Vasa since 1951 by crossing the Stockholm Bay on a boat and systematically lowering a hand plumb bob. On August 25, 1956, he found wood in the plumb hole. The diver Per Edvin Fälting confirmed that the find was the ship he was looking for. The ship was surprisingly well preserved, which is also due to the fact that the so-called shipworm ( Teredo navalis ), which otherwise destroys all wooden objects in a very short time , cannot survive in the brackish water of the Stockholm harbor on the Baltic Sea.
From the autumn of 1957 onwards, divers under Franzén's direction flushed out six tunnels under the ship for two years. At the end of August 1959, several pontoons were moored over the wreck, steel cables were pulled through the six tunnels and the ship was raised. The high sulfur content in the harbor water had preserved the ship's wood, so the Vasa could be salvaged in a well-preserved condition. Then the ship was brought into shallow waters in 16 stages. Then the hull and the cannon ports were sealed underwater by divers. The final uplift took place on April 24, 1961. The ship was then cleared of water and mud and towed to Beckholmen Island to a dry dock. The Vasa had to swim across the threshold of the dry dock on its own keel. In the mud on the ship's floor, 13,000 pieces of wood, 500 carved figures, 200 ornaments, a few cannons that had not yet been recovered and 12,000 smaller objects made of wood, textiles, leather and metal were found. In addition, more than 4,000 copper coins from the reign of Gustav II Adolf and 74 silver coins from the 16th and 17th centuries were found.
First the ship was housed in a light metal hall. There, the ship's hull and the finds were restored and preserved over many years of detailed work. To prevent the wood from shrinking and cracking as it dried, it was impregnated with polyethylene glycol for 17 years . However, the oxidation of the sulfur contained in the wood produced sulfuric acid, which decomposes the wood. Even today, these sulfur residues are a danger to the hull of the ship. It is therefore regularly checked for deformation. Chemical agents and improved air conditioning contribute to neutralization .
The Vasa Museum
A storm destroyed part of the roof structure of the light metal building in 1987. It was therefore decided to build a stable museum, which was completed in 1990 by Månsson & Dahlbäck Arkitektkontor . In its 34 meter high main hall, the ship can now be viewed in full in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. Seven levels allow a view of the ship and thus an insight into the history of Sweden . The “Vasamuseet” is located in Djurgården behind the Djurgårdsbron bridge . A model of the Vasa is also on display in the shipping department of the German Museum of Technology in Berlin .
See also
- Vasa syndrome describes a communication problem in management and marketing circles as well as in leadership
- List of the largest wooden ships in the world
Movies
- Stockholm 1628. The Adventure of Vasa. (OT: Vasa 1628. ) Documentary with scenic documentation in 2 parts: 45:41 min. And 45:26 min., Sweden, 2011, script and director: Anders Wahlgren, production: Suecia Film, SVT , Sveriges Utbildningsradio (UR) , NRK , YLE , Finlands Svenska Television (FST), German first broadcast: June 22, 2013 on arte, summary of part 1 ( memento of February 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) and part 2 ( memento of February 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) from arte.
literature
- Björn Landström : Regalskeppet Vasan , Interpublishing Stockholm 1980, ISBN 91-970221-0-1 .
- Bengt Ohrelius: Vasa. The royal ship. Delius, Klasing & Co. , Bielefeld, Berlin 1964.
- Wolfram zu Mondfeld: Wasa. Swedish shelf ship from 1628 (volume 1: text volume, volume 2: plan set), Mosaik Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-570-01452-5 .
- Curt Borgenstam, Anders Sandström: Why Vasa Capsized. Vasa Museum , Stockholm 1984, ISBN 91-85268-59-3 .
- Günter Lanitzki : The Wasa from 1628. Transpress , Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-344-00461-1 .
- Daniel Schmiedke: The Vasa. History of the Swedish State Ship. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-7338-0343-4 .
- KJ Rose: The Naval Architecture of the Vasa, a 17th Century Swedish War Ship. Dissertation. Texas A&M University, 2014.
Web links
- Vasa Museum (German)
- Wasa. In: bruzelius.info , (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Björn Landström : Regalskeppet Vasan. Interpublishing, Stockholm 1980, ISBN 91-970221-0-1 .
- ↑ Rose, KJ (2014). The Naval Architecture of the Vasa, a 17th Century Swedish War Ship (pp. 9-10). Dissertation, Texas A&M University.
- ^ Björn Landström : Regalskeppet Vasan. Interpublishing, Stockholm 1980, ISBN 91-970221-0-1 .
- ^ The sculptures of the Vasa. ( Memento from April 15, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) In: hem.bredband.net
- ^ A painted model of the Vasa. In: Vasamuseet
- ↑ Berthold Seewald: The extras ruined Sweden's super battleship. In: The world . May 23, 2015, accessed on May 23, 2015 : “But already the first gust of wind pushed the ship threateningly on its side. 1300 meters and 20 minutes later, a stronger gust pushed the ship so far to the side that water penetrated through the lower gun ports. Within a few minutes, the unbeatable battleship sank in the port of Stockholm and 50 passengers with it. The rest could be saved. "
- ↑ Conservation 1962–1979 - The Hull. In: Vasamuseet , archived from the original on January 20, 2014 ; accessed on January 2, 2016 .
Coordinates: 59 ° 19 ′ 40 ″ N , 18 ° 5 ′ 28 ″ E