Vasa (Wasa) — 1628 Swedish Warship Model, Medium | Admiral Line

The only intact 17th-century warship in existence, built plank on frame in hardwood at medium scale.

Vasa is unlike other subjects in this catalogue in one respect: we know exactly what she looked like. Most 17th-century ships are reconstructed from plans and paintings. She was raised from the seabed almost whole, so the carving, the deck arrangement and the hull lines are documented rather than inferred.

Construction

• Plank-on-frame hull in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany
• Two gun decks with cast cannon and carved port lids
• Carved and gilded stern castle, quarter galleries and beakhead
• Three masts and bowsprit with complete hand-knotted rigging
• Hand-stitched linen sails on every yard
• Ship's boats, capstan, wheel, anchors and rudder
• Solid wood base and engraved brass nameplate
• Fully assembled

History

Launched at Stockholm in 1628 for Gustavus Adolphus, Vasa was top-heavy from the start — two gun decks on a hull too narrow to support them. On 10 August 1628 a squall caught her about 1,300 metres into her maiden voyage. Water flooded the open lower gunports and she went down in front of the crowd assembled to see her off. Cold, low-salinity Baltic water kept shipworm away from her oak for 333 years; she was raised in 1961 and now has her own museum in Stockholm, the most visited in Scandinavia.