Vasa (ship)

Vasa's port side bow
Career
Ordered:	1625
Laid down:	1626
Launched:	1627
Commissioned:	Sank on maiden voyage.
Status:	Salvaged, currently a museum ship
General Characteristics
Displacement:	1210 metric tons
Total Length:	69 m (226.3 ft)
Beam:	11.7 m (38.4 ft)
Draft:	4.8 m (15.7 ft)
Height, keel to mast:	52.5 m (172.2 ft)
Weight:	1,200 t (2,650,000 lb)
Propulsion:	Sails, 1,275 m2
Armament:	64 guns, including: 24-pounders - 48 3-pounders - 8 1-pounders - 2 Mortars - 6
Sailors:	145
Soldiers:	300
Source: The Vasa Museum

Vasa (or Wasa) is a 64-gun warship, built for Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden 1626-1628. She foundered after sailing only a mile into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. After years of searching and preparation from 1956, Vasa was salvaged with a largely intact hull on 24 April 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum called Wasavarvet ("The Wasa Shipyard") until 1987, and was then moved to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. The ship is one Sweden's most popular tourist attractions and has so far attracted over 25 million visitors.

Thousands of artifacts and the remains of 16 people have been found inside or near Vasa by marine archaeologists. Among the many items found were clothing, weapons, cannons, tools, coins, cutlery, food, drink and six of the ten sails. The artefacts and the ship itself have provided historians with invaluable insight into details on everyday life, naval warfare and shipbuilding techniques in the early 17th century. When she was built, Vasa was intended to express the expansionist aspirations of Sweden and its king, Gustavus Adolphus, and no expense was spared in decorating and equipping her. She was one of the largest and most heavily armed warships of her time and was adorned with hundreds of sculptures, concentrated mainly to her bow and stern, all of them painted in vivid colors.

The Vasa was built top-heavy with insufficient ballast, she foundered as soon as she encountered a wind stronger than a breeze, just a few minutes after first setting sail for her maiden voyage. The ship was fitted with an extra gun deck without consideration for the sailing characteristics and enlarged per measurements ordained by the king. Despite clearly lacking stability even in port, she was allowed to set sail, mainly due to the impatience of Gustavus Adolphus to see her join the Baltic fleet in the Thirty Years' War. An inquiry was held after the disaster and the captain was arrested, but no sentences were handed out as the king himself, who was considered infallible, had approved all measurements.

History

Gustavus Adolphus has been king of Sweden for little more than a decade in the 1620s. The navy was in poor shape and Sweden was deeply embroiled in a war with Poland, and looked apprehensively at the development of the Thirty Years' War in present day Germany. The war had been raging since 1618 and from a Protestant perspective it wasn't going too well. The king's plans for the Polish campaign and for securing Sweden's interests required a strong naval presence in the Baltic.

In 1625 the king ordered four ships, two large and two smaller. Vasa was intended to be one of the heaviest and most splendid ships of its time, but became marred by problems during construction. The ship took its name from the sheaf that is in the coat of arms of House of Vasa and part of the Swedish royal coat of arms. The second of the large ships was to be name Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns", the national emblem of Sweden with origins in the 14th century). This was similar to the other so-called regalskepp (roughly "royal ships"), the largest of the Swedish warships of which Vasa would be the grandest. The royal ships were commonly named after the royal regalia, such as Kronan ("The Crown"), Svärdet ("The Sword") and Äpplet ("The Apple"; the Swedish term for the globus cruciger).

Construction

Vasa's port side.

Just before the Vasa was ordered, the work at the Stockholm shipyard was led by Antonius Monier, with Dutch-born Henrik Hybertsson as hired shipbuilder. On 16 January 1625, Henrik and his brother Arendt Hybertsson de Groote took over the shipyard and soon signed a contract to build four ships, two larger with a keel of around 135 feet (41 m) and two smaller of 108 feet (33 m).

After a few years, the shipyard ran into economic problems, delaying the construction of the contracted ships. At the same time, the Swedish navy lost ten ships in a single storm and the king worriedly sent a letter to admiral Clas Fleming, asking him to make sure that Henrik hurried the construction of the two smaller ships. Along with the letter were measurements for the ship the king intended, with a 120 foot (36.5 m) keel. That gave Henrik Hybertsson new problems, because the measurements given by the king were between the planned larger and smaller vessels and the timber had already been cut. In a new letter, on 22 February 1626, the king yet again demanded his measurements for the new ship be followed. In the end it seems that Henrik extended one of his designs for a smaller 108-foot ship by adding another section to it, creating the 135-foot ship that would become Vasa.

Hybertssson never had the chance to see the Vasa completed; he fell ill in late 1625, one year into construction, and died in the spring of 1627. The supervision of the shipbuilding was handed over to Hybertssson's assistant, Hein Jaconsson, also a Dutch immigrant. In practice, while Henrik was ill, the responsibility was shared between him and his assistant Hein, leading to confusion and unclear leadership.

While the ship was being equipped, admiral Fleming ordered that the stability of Vasa be tested. The standard stability test of the day was thirty sailors running from one side of the ship to the other, assessing the tendency of the ship to rock. When this was attempted on Vasa, the ship began to roll significantly after only three runs and the test was aborted. Fleming allegedly said "had they run more times, she would have keeled over". Surprisingly enough, neither Hein Jacobsson nor Johan Isbrandsson, the two ship builders in charge at the time, were present for the stability test. In response to the test, boatswain Matsson is said to have uttered "God hope it will stay on its keel", to which the admiral replied "The master shipbuilder surely has built ships before, so Matsson need have no worries of that kind."

Shortly after the disaster, Henrik's brother and co-owner Arendt Hybertsson left Sweden and returned to Holland.

Armament

Vasa was built during the transition between naval tactics where boarding was still one of the primary ways of fighting enemy ships and the strictly organized ship-of-the-line, where focus lay on victory through superior fire power. She was armed with powerful guns and a high stern which would act as a firing platform in boarding actions for some of the 300 soldiers she was supposed to carry. Vasa was neither the largest ship ever built and she did not have the greatest amount of guns. What made her arguably the most powerful warship of the time was that her broadside, the combined weight of the ammunition that could be fired from the cannon of one side, was 588 pounds (c. 266 kg). This was the most massive broadside yet conceived, and it was not until the 1630s that a ship capable of hurling more ammunition at once was built and all this superior firepower was fit into a ship that was small relative to the armament carried. For comparison, the famous Napoleonic era frigate USS Constitution (built 169 years after the Vasa) had a broadside that was about the same as Vasa, but was over 700 tons heavier.

Naval gunnery in the 17th century was still in its infancy. Guns were very expensive and had a much longer lifespan than any warship. In Sweden and in many European countries, a ship would not "own" its guns, but would instead be issued with a specific armament from the armory for every mission. Guns being used for almost a century was not unheard of, and most ships would only be in use for about 20-40 years. Ships were therefore mostly fitted with guns of very diverse age and size. What allowed Vasa to carry so much firepower was not merely an unusually large number of guns crammed into a relatively small ship, but also that 46 of the 48 24-pounders were of a new and standardized lightweight design. The cannon on Vasa were still made from individual casts, but had such uniform precision in their design that their primary dimensions varied by only a few millimeters and their bores were almost exactly 146 mm.

Ornamentation

Reproductions of some of the sculptures that adorned Vasa on display at the Vasa Museum. The sculptures are painted in what are believed to be the original colors. The two cherubs in the center are holding the coat of arms of the House of Vasa, the sheaf (vasen), the namesake of the ship.

As was the custom with warships at the time, Vasa was decorated with sculptures that were intended to glorify the authority, wisdom and martial prowess of the monarch, and also to deride, taunt and frighten the enemy. The sculptures made up a considerable part of the effort and cost in building the ship and would even have added considerable weight, thereby hampering the maneuverability of the ship. The symbolism used in decorating the ship is mostly based on the Renaissance idealization of Roman and Greek antiquity which had been imported from Italy through German and Dutch artists. The motifs are dominated by imagery borrowed from Mediterranean antiquity, but there are also figures from the Old Testament and even a few from Ancient Egypt. Many of the figures are in a Dutch grotesque style depicting fantastic and frightening creatures, including mermaids, savages, sea monsters and tritons. The decoration inside the ship is much more sparse and is largely confined to the officer's quarters and the admiral's cabin, which are located in the stern.

Residues of paint have been found on many sculptures and on other parts of the ship. The entire ornamentation was once painted in bright, vivid colors and in some cases enhanced with genuine gold leaf. The sides of the beakhead (the protruding structure below the bowsprit), the bulwarks (the protective railing around the weather deck), the roofs of the quarter galleries, and the background of the transom were all painted red while the sculptures were decorated with natural colors, and the dazzling effect of these was in some places reinforced with patches of gold leaf. Previously, it was believed that the background color had been blue and that most of the sculptures had been almost entirely gilded, and this is reflected in many paintings of Vasa from the 1970s and 80s, most notably that of maritime painter S. Francis Smitheman. In the late 1990s this was revised and is now properly reflected in more recent reproductions of the ship's decoration. Vasa is an example not so much of the heavily gilded sculptures of early Baroque art, but rather "the last gasps of the medieval sculpture tradition", with its fondness for gaudy colors, closely resembling what today might be called kitsch.

A color projection display of what the richly ornamented transom looked like when the ship was newly built.

The sculptures are carved out of oak, pine or linden and many of the larger pieces, like the huge, 3-meter, figurehead lion, consist of several parts which have been carved individually and then fitted together with bolts. There are close to 500 sculptures on the ship, most of which are concentrated to the high stern and its galleries, and the beakhead. In addition there are some 200 ornaments and 300 embellished details; railings, panels, fittings, etc. Altogether this meant some 1,000 carvings which comprise an estimated 95% of the original ornamentation. 57% of the sculptures are made of oak, 26% from lime and 17% from pine without any discernible pattern in the use of wood types; sculptures of similar types were carved from different types of wood and individual artists worked with all thee materials. The oak and pine pieces, both being tough types of wood, are the ones that are the most intact while many of the linden carvings, which are a softer, have sustained more damage and wear.

The figure of Hercules can be found as a pair of pendants on each side of the lower stern galleries, one younger and one older, each representing opposite aspects of the ancient hero, who was extremely popular during antiquity as well as in 17th century European art. On the transom (the flat surface at the stern of the ship) are depictions of king David along with some of the 23 warriors Gideon, all dressed in Roman armor. Flanking the royal coat of arms are six warriors portraying the king's Gothic ancestors, clad in contemporary armor and armed with spears and shields. A particularly popular motif is the lion, which can be found as the mascarons which were originally fitted on the inside of all the gunport doors, as grasping the royal coat of arms on either side, as the 3-meter-long figurehead, and even clinging to the top of the rudder. On each side of the beakhead there were originally 20 figures (though only 19 have actually been found) that represented Roman emperors from Tiberius to Septimius Severus. The imperial figures are placed in chronological order from the front on the starboard side and continuing from the back on the port side. Augustus, the most renowned of the emperors, is missing and it is assumed that this meant to convey the message that he was personified by king Gustavus Adolphus himself. Overall, almost all heroic and positive imagery is directly or indirectly identified with the king and was originally intended to glorify him as an absolute and flawless ruler. The only actual portrait of the king is located at the very top of the transom where he is depicted as a young boy with long, flowing hair, about to be crowned by two griffins who represent the king's father, Charles IX.

A recreation of the color pigments that were used by the naval shipyard where the ship was built; exhibit at the Vasa Museum.

A team of at least six expert sculptors worked for a minimum of two years on the sculptures, most likely with the assistance of an unknown number of apprentices and assistants. No direct credit for any of the sculptures has been provided, but the distinct style of one of the most senior artists, Mårten Redtmer, are clearly identifiable. Other accomplished artists, like Hans Clausink, Johan Didrichson Tijsen (or Thessen in Swedish) and possibly Marcus Ledens, are known to have been employed for extensive work at the naval yards at the time Vasa was built, but their respective styles are not distinct enough to associate them directly with any specific sculptures. The artistic quality of the sculptures varies considerably and around four distinct styles can be identified. The only one that can be directly associated with any one individual is the work of Mårten Redtmer, whose style has been described as "powerful, lively and naturalistic" and can with great certainty be identified in a considerable percentage of the sculptures including some of the most important and prestigious pieces; the figurehead lion, the royal coat of arms and the sculpture of the king at the top of the transom. Two of the other styles are described as "elegant [...] a little stereotyped and manneristic", and "heavy, leisurely but nevertheless rich and lively style" respectively. The fourth and last style is deemed clearly inferior to the other three, "stiff and ungainly" and was done by unidentified carvers of lesser skill, perhaps even apprentices.

Maiden voyage

Central Stockholm and the movements of Vasa from the wharf where she was built (1) to the anchoring place near the old royal castle where she was fitted and armed (2), and finally the location where she foundered and sank (3).

On 10 August 1628, Captain Söfring Hansson ordered Vasa to set sail on her maiden voyage to the naval station at Älvsnabben. The day was calm, and the only wind was a light breeze from the southwest. The ship was towed along the waterfront to the southern side of the harbour, where three sails were set and the ship made way to the east. The gun ports were open and the guns out to fire a salute as the ship left Stockholm. Finally the great ship had begun her voyage.

After emerging from the lee of the city, a gust of wind filled the sails and Vasa heeled to port suddenly. The sheets were cast off, and the ship slowly righted herself as the gust passed. Soon another gust came which again forced the ship onto her port side, this time causing water to start flowing in through the open lower gun ports. Due to the rush of incoming water, Vasa continued to heel further as she sank lower in the water. She sank to a depth of 32 meters only 120 meters from the shore. The survivors clung on to debris to save themselves and many boats that were nearby rushed to aid the survivors, but despite their efforts and the short distance to the land, 30 to 50 people were trapped in the ship and perished. The flags and the tops of the main and fore masts were still visible above the surface, but were leaning heavily to port because the ballast had shifted during the disaster.

Inquest

When the king heard of Vasa's fate, he was incensed. 'Imprudence and negligence' must have been the cause, he wrote angrily in a letter, demanding in no uncertain terms that the guilty parties be punished. Captain Söfring Hansson who survived the disaster was immediately put in prison, awaiting trial. Under initial interrogation, he swore that the guns were properly secured and the crew were sober. A full inquest was organised by the Royal Council, and this took place before a court of admirals and councilors on September 5, 1628. Each of the surviving officers was questioned, as was the supervising shipwright and a number of expert witnesses.

As the inquest interrogated surviving crew members, it questioned the handling of the ship at the time of the disaster. Was she rigged properly for the wind? Was her cargo too heavy? In the end, the answers were deemed satisfactory and no incriminating evidence was found. Later, the focus was on the ship builders. Jacobson testified he had built the Vasa according to the serte left to him by Henrik Hybertson and His Majesty. The King had approved all measurements and armaments, and the ship was built according to the instructions and loaded with the number of guns specified.

In the end, no guilty party could be found. 'Only God knows', was the answer de Groot gave when asked by the court why the ship sank. The person responsible for the design, Henrik Hybertsson, was long dead and buried. The ship was built according to the specifications laid out by the king and one couldn't very well punish the king. In the end, no one was punished or found guilty for negligence and the sinking was explained as an act of God. The sinking of the Vasa was also a major economic disaster; the cost of the ship was more than 40 000 dalers, a major expense for the Swedish state.

Recovery

Less than 3 days after the Vasa disaster, a contract was put out for the ship to be raised. Those efforts were however unsuccessful. More than 30 years after the ship's sinking, in 1664, Albreckt von Treileben and Andereas Peckell mounted an effort to recover the valuable guns. With a simple diving bell, the team of a Swede and a German managed to recover over 50 of the Vasa's guns.

Although activity slowed down after it became clear that the ship couldn't be raised by the technology of the time, the Vasa did not lay forgotten on the bottom of the sea between the end of the recovery of the guns and the modern salvage efforts. The place where the Vasa sank was again located in the mid-1800s, and it seems probable dives were performed on the wreck. Later, the site was used as a naval diving training site.

Then, in 1956, amateur archaeologist Anders Franzén thought of the possibility of recovering wrecks from the Baltic waters, because he reasoned that these waters were free from the shipworm Teredo navalis, which usually destroy submerged wood rapidly, due to the cold brackish waters. He started looking for Vasa and found her in an upright position at a depth of 32 meters. The wreck was lifted in a relatively straightforward way, by digging six tunnels under the hull through which steel cables were attached to a pair of lifting pontoons. The ship was lifted in a series of 18 lifts during August and September 1959, brought from a depth of 32 meters to a more easily managed 16 meters where she was to be made watertight for the final lift. Her gun ports were closed by means of temporary lids and all the holes from the iron bolts, which had rusted away, were plugged. The final lift took place on 24 April 1961, after which she was put in a dry dock. Over 1300 dives were performed in the salvage operation, all without any serious accidents.

After the lifting of the wreck, the wreck site was searched for artifacts and over 700 sculptures were found. These carvings were once attached to the ship, but the bolts had rusted away, causing the sculptures to fall to the bottom. In total, over 26,000 artifacts were found, including six of the ten original sails, still folded.

During the recovery a statue of the 20:th century Finnish national-hero and runner Paavo Nurmi was found on the deck of the ship. The anachronistic statue caused an initial uproar. It was soon thereafter confirmed as a prank by students of the Helsinki University of Technology, who had smuggled the statue onto the ship just days before its lifting. This should have been impossible as the ship was under the guard of the Swedish navy.

Causes of sinking

A model showing Vasa's hull profile, illustrating the shallow keel and two gun decks.

In the 17th century, the design requirements and calculations for building a ship only existed in the head of the shipwright. Scientific theories on vessel design or stability had not yet been developed, so important factors like the ship's center of gravity had to be estimated from the builder's experience. Vasa was finished with two gundecks, at the king's request. The final hull of the Vasa was divided into three decks and a bottom compartment containing the ballast, consisting of large, tightly packed stones, was stored. Vasa carried 120 tons of ballast, but this was not enough to counter the considerable weight above the water line; even a light squall would seriously destabilize the ship. Common practice of the time dictated that heavy guns were to be placed on the lower gundeck to decrease the weight on the upper gun deck and improve stability. A last minute decision was made to equip the ship with heavy 24 pound guns on both decks in order to make her the most powerful warship in the world. The upper row of gunports on Vasa are slightly smaller than the lower ones since the original plan was to equip the ship with smaller 12 pound guns on the upper deck.

Warships of the period, even when properly armed, were highly unstable. A major reason for this was that they were built with high aftercastles which provided a platform for soldiers to fire upon the enemy with small arms. Another reason was that gundecks followed thick wale planks that curved upward dramatically at their ends and added to the top-heaviness. Later designs flattened the decks and made the ports cut through the wale planks. Later, wale planks were flattened and were not cut through at all. Vasa did not carry enough ballast to counter her weight above water. Upon salvaging, the ship was found to have an intact hold full of ballast stones. Even if Vasa had sufficient ballast to be stable she would have sat too low and would have taken water through open gunports on the lower deck even while floating upright.

Captain Söfring Hansson sailed the brand new ship with open gunports which was not common practice. Brand new ships were most commonly first sailed with closed gunports in order to give the captain and crew an idea of how the new ship would handle. Each and every ship ever built in the 17th century handled a little differently. Vasa was also supposed to head for Älvsnabben in the outer archipelago to take on all of her stores and personnel which might have provided more stability.

Conservation

The preserved Vasa seen from above the bow.

Although the Vasa was in surprisingly good condition after 333 years at the bottom of the sea, it would quickly deteriorate if the hull was simply allowed to dry. The large bulk of the Vasa, over 900 cubic meters of oak timber, constituted an unprecedented conservation problem. After some debate on how to best preserve the ship, conservation was done using polyethylene glycol (PEG), a method that was also used years later in the conservation process of the 16th century English ship Mary Rose. Vasa was sprayed with this glycol for 17 years, followed by 9 years of slow drying.

The reason that Vasa was so well-preserved was not just the absence of the shipworm that normally devours wooden ships, but also that the waters of Stockholms ström was heavily polluted before the late 20th century because of waste dumped by the ever-growing population of Stockholm. By the early 19th century, the oxygen levels were so low that the salmon disappeared from the waters around the capital and by 1943 the amount of hydrogen sulfide was 3 to 8 milligrams per liter. This highly toxic and hostile environment meant that even the toughest microorganisms that decay wood had a hard time surviving. This along with the fact that Vasa had been newly built when she sank contributed to her conservation. Unfortunately, the toxicity of the water also had a negative effect. The sulfur in the water around Vasa had penetrated the wood and when the ship was salvaged, it had began reacting with its new, oxygen-rich environment and produced sulphuric acid. In the fall of 2000 spots of white residue were from only a few centimeters to half a meter were noticed on Vasa, which turned out to be salts that had formed when the sulfates had reacted with oxygen. The stains had a very low pH-level and were the first indications that the ship contained considerable amounts of sulfuric acid. The salts on the surface Vasa and various objects found in and around her are not a threat in of themselves (even if the discoloring may distract) but if they start to form inside the wood, they may expand and crack the wood, chipping surface material off. This would be especially unfortunate if it happened to objects made by skilled craftsmen, such as equipment or some of the hundreds of carved sculptures. Currently, the amount of sulfuric acid in Vasa's hull has been estimated to be in excess of two tons, and more is continually being created. There is enough sulfur in the ship to produce another five tons of acid at a rate of about 100 kg per year, which might eventually destroy the ship almost entirely.

To deal with the problem of the inevitable deterioration of the ship, the main hall of the Vasa Museum is kept at a temperature of 18-20 degrees Celsius and a humidity level of 55%. To slow down the corruption by sulfuric acid, many different methods have been tried. Small objects have been sealed in plastic containers containing nitrogen gas, which create a seal that halts the reaction between sulfur and oxygen. There are plans to replace the iron bolts that help hold the ship together. The original bolts rusted away after the ship sank, but were replaced with modern ones that were galvanized and covered with epoxy. Despite this, these have also started to rust and release iron into the wood, which speeds up the deterioration. There are plans to replace the iron bolts with materials that are non-reactive, such as titanium, carbon fiber or fiberglass.

The museum is constantly monitoring the ship for damage caused by decay or warping of the wood. There is ongoing research on how to best preserve the ship for future generations and to analyze the existing material as closely as possible. A current problem is that the old oak that the ship is built of is starting to give way and the braces that supports her are pressed deeper into the hull every year. "The amount of movement in the hull is worrying. If nothing is done, the ship will most likely capsize again", states Magnus Olofson from the Vasa museum. An effort to secure the Vasa for the future is under way, in cooperation with the Royal Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University and other institutions around the globe.

Literature and popular culture

Vasa has been the subject of hundreds of books, articles and papers on topics ranging from marine archaeology to culinary history. Its unique status has drawn considerable attention and captured the imagination of more than two generations of scholars, tourists, model builders and authors. The popular perception of the building of the ship as a botched and disorganized affair (dubbed as “the Vasa-syndrome”) has been used by many authors of management literature as an educational example of how not to organize a successful business project. Over three centuries later, the same kinds of mistakes that is described to have plagued the Vasa are still relevant to modern engineering projects.

The museum has produced two versions of a documentary about the history and recovery of the ship which is screened in the museum and has later been released on VHS and DVD with narration in 16 languages. Several mass-produced model kits and countless custom-built model reproductions of the ship have been made. In 1991, a 308 ton pastiche reproduction of the ship was built in Tokyo to serve as a 650 passenger sightseeing ship. Vasa has inspired many works of art, including a guilded Disney-themed parody of the pilaster sculptures on the ship's quarter galleries. Three children’s books about Vasa have been written in Swedish and later translated into English, The Vasa Saga by Bertil Almqvist, The Vasa Sets Sail by Mats Wahl (illustrated by Sven Nordqvist) and The Vasa Piglet by Björn Bergenholtz.

Sources

• Template:Sv icon Borgenstam, Curt and Sandström, Anders (1984), Varför kantrade Wasa?: Wasastudier, nr 12 ISBN 91-85268-21-6
• Cederlund, Carl Olof, series editor Fred Hocker, Vasa I, The Archaeology of a Swedish Warship of 1628, National Maritime Museums of Sweden, Stockholm 2006 (in English), ISBN 91-974659-0-9. Volume 1 in an 8-volume archaeological report currently in production.
• Kvarning, Lars-Åke and Ohrelius, Bengt (1998) The Vasa - The Royal Ship ISBN 91-7486-581-1
• Template:Sv icon Modellen: Vasamodeller från när och fjärran (1997), ISBN 91-85268-69-0 (Vasa Museum exhibit catalog)
• Template:Sv icon Sandström, Anders (1982) Sjöstrid på Wasas tid: Wasastudier, nr 9 ISBN 91-85268-15-1
• Soop, Hans (1986) The Power and the Glory : The Sculptures of The Warship Wasa ISBN 91-7402-168-0
• Vasa Museum homepage

See also

• Maritime archeology
• Kronan
• Mary Rose
• Batavia
• Royal Swedish Navy

External links

• Vasa Museum
• Vasa's Revival
• Andy Carvin's Vasa Gallery
• High resolution photos of a Vasa model
• Harvard Business Review: The Fate of the Vasa
• Clayton's model ship page Features a scratch built model of the Swedish Warship Vasa

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