V A S A museum

After a few minutes on the tram, we hopped off at our stop to see the Vasa Museum. A short walk down a snow-covered pathway reminded us so much of Alaska. Actually, the landscape {minus the history and architecture} reminded us so much of Alaska.

We had a few minutes to walk around before the English-speaking tour began.

The Vasa is some ship. The tour was fascinating.

In 1625, King Gustav II Adolf bought the materials and signed a contract for the Vasa to be built. After two years under construction, she was ready to sail and Vasa is launched.

Vasa was built of more than a thousand oak trees with 64 cannon masts, over 50 meters high and had hundreds of painted and gilded sculptures.

A gust of wind comes up and on her maiden voyage {with all of Stockholm watching} Vasa barely sails 1300 meters and is turned over after only 25 minutes. All of the gun ports were open causing the ship to sink.

About 30 died when the ship went down including families of the crew who were invited to ride on the maiden voyage.

Sunk. Unbelievable.

They tried to raise the ship without success.

In 1956, they start again with attempts to recover the ship. The final lift takes place on April 24, 1961 and Vasa breaks the surface again after 333 years.

Most of the ship is the original Vasa with a few areas that were rebuild during the preservation. I think he said 95% was the original ship. The details are incredible especially considering it was under water for more than 300 years.

Why did she sink? The final conclusion was that she was too top heavy. Standing next to her, she is massive and it seems a no-brainer that she was too tall and narrow. They said the Captain did complain that he thought she was not built right, but it was too late and the King ordered her to sail.

At the time, another ship was built and had sailed for 30 years with success. They were similar in size and build. When they measured the difference- they found that Vasa was build one meter more narrow. One meter that might have made a huge difference.

We were captivated and enjoyed this little bit of Swedish history.