Vasa (Wasa) — Exclusive Edition Serial-Numbered Model | Admiral Line

The 1628 Swedish warship built to our highest specification and individually recorded — a serial number etched into the hull tying your model to its build date, timber and workshop.

On Vasa that traceability earns its place. The original carried around five hundred carved figures, and the sculpture on a model is applied by hand, so no two hulls are ornamented identically.

Construction

• Plank-on-frame hull in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany
• Two gun decks with cast cannon and carved port lids
• Deep-carved and gilded stern castle, quarter galleries, beakhead and figurehead
• 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
• Serial number etched into the hull

History

Built for Gustavus Adolphus and launched at Stockholm in 1628, Vasa carried two gun decks on a hull too narrow to carry them. A ballast test before she sailed had already shown the problem — thirty men running side to side nearly rolled her at the quay — but the King was at war and wanted his ship. On 10 August 1628 a light squall heeled her over, water poured through the open lower gunports, and she sank about 1,300 metres into her maiden voyage in front of the crowd that had come to watch. The Baltic's cold, brackish water kept shipworm out of her timbers for 333 years. She was raised nearly intact in 1961 and is the centrepiece of her own museum in Stockholm.