A diver showing the skull of a crew member from the 17th-century Swedish Vasa ship.

In the 17th century, warship design was changing. All contemporary warships were wooden sailing vessels armed with several cannons on a gun deck. The more cannons a ship had, the more effective it was in combat.

Then, an enterprising naval architect had the idea of adding a second gun deck above the first, allowing a warship to carry twice as many cannons. While that certainly added firepower, it also added weight.

Cannons are heavy, and placing two decks of these weapons above the waterline could make a ship’s centre of gravity dangerously high.

The Design

The Thirty Years’ War raged in central Europe from 1618 to 1648. It was one of the most bloody and destructive European wars ever and would leave an estimated 8 million combatants and civilians dead. 

The root cause of the war was an internal struggle between Protestants and Catholics within the Holy Roman Empire, but it also drew in other European and Scandinavian nations.

Gustavus Adolphus became king of Sweden just as this war was beginning, in 1611. He was determined that Sweden would take its place amongst the great European nations. 

He modernised and re-equipped the Swedish army and planned to make the Swedish Navy a formidable force.

In January 1625, an order was placed with the main shipbuilding company in Stockholm, Hendrik and Arend Hybertsson, to build four warships for the Swedish Navy. Two of these were to be ships of the line, the largest warships in use at the time. 

In September 1625, a flotilla of the Swedish Navy was caught in a terrible storm that destroyed ten of its ships.

Suddenly, the new building programme became more urgent, and the king ordered that the new warships be completed as quickly as possible.

Söfring Hansson, was appointed captain of the new vessel, and he quickly instituted a “lurch” test, a standard method of assessing the stability of a ship. 

A party of thirty men were gathered on the upper deck and ordered to sprint from side to side. After three crossings of the deck, they were ordered to stop – the ship was rolling so alarmingly it was feared that it might heel over.

Nevertheless, the king wanted the Vasa launched as quickly as possible. Swedish involvement in the Thirty Years’ War seemed inevitable, and the new warship would provide a much-needed boost to Swedish naval power in the Baltic. 

Hundreds of people gathered on shore and in small boats to watch the launch of the mighty new warship. In the late afternoon of 10th August, the Vasa finally cast off its moorings for the first time.

There was virtually no wind, and the ship was dragged out into Stockholm Harbour, where it began to drift in the current. Then, a light gust of wind caught the sails, and the ship heeled alarmingly before slowly recovering.

The gunports were open in preparation for firing a broadside in salute to the watching crowd when a second light gust of wind hit the ship. It heeled over so far that the open gunports were submerged.

Based on these findings, the Swedish Navy persuaded a dive team to take a look. Experienced salvage diver Per Edvin Fälting investigated the bottom where the samples had been recovered.

He found what appeared to be a tall, wooden wall pierced by a number of square openings. The Vasa had been discovered.

Recovery

After more than 300 years underwater, nobody had expected that there would be much left of a wooden ship, but Fälting’s report suggested that the wreck was surprisingly intact. 

Anders Franzén began building a coalition of groups that might be willing to help recover the wreck, aided by interest from King Gustavus Adolphus VI, a direct descendant of the man who had commissioned the Vasa and a trained archaeologist.

The Swedish Navy agreed to provide divers and support vessels. The Neptune Diving and Salvage Company, a division of Broströms, Sweden’s largest marine salvage company, agreed to provide equipment and resources free of charge. 

For over two years, divers toiled to excavate a series of tunnels beneath the wreck. These were used to construct a giant basket that surrounded the hull.

In August 1959, the ship was lifted for the first time, not to the surface, but so that it could be moved to shallower water closer to shore where divers could work on it more easily.

For 18 months, they plugged holes in the hull, covered the open gun ports, and added steel bars to reinforce the hull. Then, on 24th April 1961, the ship was finally brought to the surface.

Thousands of people crowded the shore at Kastellholmsviken when, at just after 09:00, the Vasa rose above the surface of the ocean for the first time in over 330 years.

Conclusion

The recovery of the Vasa in 1961 was only the first step in a long and painstaking process of restoration and preservation. The most striking aspect of the wreck was just how well it had survived its long immersion. 

Later, it was discovered that high salinity in the waters of Stockholm Harbour had acted as a preservative.

The main structure of the ship, and even its intricate carvings, were intact, and archaeologists found thousands of period artifacts, as well as human remains, on the ship.

The Vasa provided a fascinating snapshot of seafaring life in the 17th century, as well as a detailed look at a misguided piece of naval architecture.

Modern analysis proves that the Vasa was simply too top-heavy to survive even the lightest of winds, and it was doomed as soon as it left its moorings.

In 1990, King Carl XVI Gustaf opened the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, where the Vasa and many of the artifacts recovered from the ship were placed on permanent display. 

Since then, millions of visitors worldwide have come to see the only 17th-century warship that has ever been salvaged intact, the mighty but ill-fated Vasa.