Visit the Vasa Warship Museum in Stockholm, Sweden

Vasa meets her final destiny in August 1628

Vasa initiated her maiden voyage on the 10th of August 1628, leaving the quay situated in central Stockholm in what is today known as the Old Town at Skeppsbron. But just a few minutes later something goes terrible wrong. Vasa starts to tilt more and more and she finally capsizes a few hundred meters from its quay. At least thirty sailors died in this catastrophe, but some material from this time indicates that up to 150 lives were spilled.

Vasa - a political knightmare for King Gustavus Adolphus

Sweden was a Baltic Sea superpower at the time Vasa was built, and the huge Vasa ship was supposed to become a symbol of Sweden and its influence. Documentation from this time tells us that the ship costed 200.000 riksdaler which would equal an enormous 5% of the total Swedish budget at that time.

A shipwright from Holland was brought in to lead the Wasa project. It seems that due to occasional miscalculations Vasa was not given the appropriate center of gravity. One factor behind this could be that the Swedish king at some point ordered that extra cannons were to be installed on upper gun deck. The extra ballast added was obviously not enough to keep Vasa in an upright position.

The captain of the ship was immediately sent to jail but soon to be freed due to lack of evidence. One interesting point regarding the aftermath of the Vasa catastrophe was that No one was ever found guilty and sentenced.

Wasa was kept sleeping on the bottom of the sea for 333 years
The warship ended its short duty 32 meters below the surface. Very soon most of the cannons were recovered by divers using a bell type of vehicle in order to submerge. But after that it seems that no one ever visited the ship until the 1950´s when the swede Anders Franzén initiated a salvage project. Then, in 1961, the ship was miraculously brought back to the surface, intact after more than 330 years on the bottom.

The fact that the Baltic Sea is free from shipworm explains the fact that the oak wood was preserved during all this time. Vasa is one of the best preserved 1700th century vessels in the world.

The Vasa museum
Despite the fact that this ship was resting on the bottom of the sea for more than 300 years, the ship and many of its artifacts are very well preserved. Even food and liquors were found of which some was consumed after the salvage in 1961.

The conservation of the wood and the rest of the materials has been a challenge. The oak wood has been trated with polyethylene glycol, but sources tell that staff at the Vasa Museum is continously testing new ways of preserving the wood.

The Vasa Museum is situated at Djurgården in central Stockholm, and is really a "must-see" museum if you´re visiting Stockholm, the beautiful capital of Sweden.

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