UNIVERSITATEA DUNAREA DE JOS GALATI

Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the
island of Djurgrden, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th
century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on
her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the
official web site, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia

HOW VASA WAS BUILT

HIS MAJESTYS SHIP

It took almost two years (1626-1627) to build Vasa. From dawn to dusk, carpenters,
smiths, ropelayers, sailmakers, painters, carvers, gun carriage makers and other
specialists struggled to complete the navys great, new ship. The king, Gustav II Adolf,
visited the shipyard to inspect the work.
Vasa should be splendid, a hull built of more than a thousand oak trees with 64
cannon, masts over 50 meters high and hundreds of painted and gilded sculptures.

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THE WARSHIP

A MACHINE OF WAR
The complete crew of Vasa was about 450 men, of whom 300 were soldiers.
Vasa was not the largest ship built in this period, nor did she have the most
cannon. What made her perhaps the most powerful warship in the world up to that time
was her broadside, the combined weight of the shot that could be fired from one side of
the ship, more than 300 kg in all. A truly fearsome machine of war!

THE SINKING

THE MAIDEN VOYAGE

On Sunday, the 10th of August, 1628, Vasa lay rigged and ready for sea just
below the royal palace Tre Kronor. Ballast, guns and ammunition were all on board.
On the quays and shores along Strmmen, an excited public waited to watch the
ship leave Stockholm and celebrate her departure.

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Over a hundred crewmen were on board, as well as women and children. The crew
had permission to take family and guests along for the first part of the passage through
the Archipelago.
THE DISASTER
The ship did not begin to sail until she reached what is now Slussen. Sailors
climbed the rigging to set four of Vasas ten sails. A salute was fired, and Vasa slowly
began her maiden voyage.
Once Vasa came out from under the lee of the Sdermalm cliffs, the sails could
catch the wind, but the ship was tender and heeled over to port, then heeled again, even
farther. Water rushed in through the open gunports and the ships fate was decided. Vasa
sank, after sailing barely 1300 meters.
The crew threw themselves into the water or clung to the rigging until rescued,
but not all managed to save themselves. Eyewitnesses differ on the exact numbers, but
perhaps 30 of approximately 150 people on board died in the loss. After the ship was
raised in 1961, the remains of at least 16 people were found.

THE SALVAGE

ANDERS FRANZN
The engineer and wreck researcher Anders Franzn looked for several famous
shipwrecks, including Vasa, for a number of years. He went through the archives in search of
information and dragged the sea bottom for physical remains. On the 25th of August, 1956, he
sat in a small motorboat with the diver Per Edvin Flting, who had provided advice on a likely
search area. On that day, his homemade coring device brought up a piece of blackened,
waterlogged oak. Flting dived to the bottom two weeks later and could confirm the find two
rows of gunports meant that it had to be Vasa.

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Franzn succeeded in enlisting support for salvaging the ship, notably with the navy and
the Neptune salvage firm.
PREPARATION
Vasa lay at a depth of 32 meters. The navys heavy divers were able to cut six
tunnels through the clay under the ship with special water jets. Steel cables were drawn
through the tunnels and taken to two lifting pontoons on the surface, which would pull
the ship free of the harbour bottoms grip. In August 1959, it was time for the first lift.
There was great uncertainty would the old wooden ship hold together? Yes! Vasa held.
She was lifted in 18 stages to shallower water, where she could be patched and
reinforced in preparation for the final lift, to the surface!
THE FINAL LIFT
The day that Vasa was scheduled to break the water, all of Sweden held its breath.
Newspapers, radio and TV from all over the world were there, and Swedish TV made its
first live broadcast to Europe.
At 9:03 AM on the 24th of April, 1961, Vasa returned to the surface. A piece of the
17th century was suddenly back among us.
WASA SHIPYARD
Just seven months after the salvage, the Wasa Shipyard opened as a provisional
museum. The ship and all of the smaller finds were conserved, partly as a great
experiment. Nothing like it had been attempted before. For 17 years, Vasa was sprayed
with polyethylene glycol, PEG a chemical compound that replaces the water in
waterlogged wood to prevent shrinkage and cracking. The current Vasa Museum opened
in 1990.
At the museum there is an exhibition about the salvage.

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RECONSTRUCTION

A GIANT PUZZLE
When Vasa was raised, a giant puzzle remained to be reassembled. There were no
plans or contemporary pictures of the ship, so the restorers had to work directly from the
remains. Thousands of loose pieces from the collapsed upper parts of the hull were
raised and conserved, and then the right places for them had to be found on the ship.
The wood of Vasa is more than 95% original timber. In addition to the ship and the
longboat (esping in Swedish), the Vasa Museums collections include over 45 000 loose
finds. An internet database provides access to the collection for the general public, as
each object is recorded, photographed and registered.
Today, Vasa is one of the world's foremost tourist attractions and offers a unique insight
into early 17-th century Sweden.

Proiect realizat de:TOIA VALENTIN

Student la Facultatea de Arhitectura Navala, anul I , grupa 2112