The Vasa was built in the Royal Dockyard in Stockholm 1628 as a galleon by Henrik Hybertszoon, a Dutchman who had served the Swedish crown since the beginning of the beginning of the 17th century.
The Vasa, by Cornelis de Vries 1978
Named after the royal house of Vasa, she was intended by King Gustavus Adolphus the be the pride of the navy and to serve in his wars for control of the Baltic. She was one of the largest ships with 49m of the day with a crew of 145 men and 300 soldiers, but was poorly designed, with too much weight high up in the ship.
Vasa’s hull, by Andrens Garkusa
Her hull is dark brown oak, with little trace of the paint that once dominate her upper sides. Decorations is concentrated at the bow and stern. The long beakhead has carved figures on each side, with another carving below, and ends with a lion figurehead, like most warships of the period. On deck, she was steered by a very long whipstaffin a small room just forward of the mizzenmast, with windows that allowed the helmsman to keep an eye on the sail but gave him no view ahead of the ship. Aft of the whipstaff were cabins on three levels. At the highest, well aft on the poop deck above, was a tiny cabin, the function of which is unkown- maybe for the pilot.
Carvings- The Vasa carried more then 700 individual pieces of carving. Replica carvings of the roof of the quater gallery have been painted to how colourful she was.
Below that was a much larger for officers, and below that was a beautifully decorated cabin for the Captain or Admiral. Forward of the whipstaff, the upper deck carried light guns toward the bow and stern, the capstan, various attachments for the rigging.
Upper deck- one of the bitts for attaching the rigging is one the right, and in front of it are gratings to give some light to the deck below and access to the hold. The beakhead (right) helps support the rigging and provides the crew’s toilet facilities.
Below that was the upper gundeck, with a dozen 24-pounder guns on each side- possibly the ship’s downfall., since they were too heavy for a vessel of this size, being the same as those on the very similar lower gun deck. Both decks are dark and low, and they provided accommodation for most of the crew.
One of the three captans on her, this one is on the upper deck was used for heavy work such as handling the running rigging. The other side shows the upper gundeck
Forward on the lower gundeck are huge riding bitts, vertical posts with a crosspiece to which the cable was attached when the ship was riding at anchor. The cooking stove is very low in the ship, in the hold just above a brick furnace. The orlop deck and the hold were both below the waterline, and the latter would have been filled with barrels.
The gunport lids with a lionhead on them
On her maiden voyage on 10th August 1628, she foundered in Stockholm Harbor and sank with the loss of 30-50 lives. The hull survived in the cold and muddy waters, and she was raised in 1961, provided the most complete information available on a 17th century warship. She is now preserved in Stockholm in the Vasa Museum.
