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

The most famous shipwreck in the world, and the only intact 17th-century warship anywhere — built here at our largest scale.

Fleet Admiral Line is the top of the workshop: longest build times, highest fitting count, most experienced hands. On Vasa, that matters more than usual. The original carried some five hundred carved sculptures, and at XL scale they are built out rather than implied.

Construction

• XL plank-on-frame hull in western red cedar, rosewood and mahogany
• Two full gun decks with individually fitted cast cannon and carved port lids
• Deep-carved and gilded stern castle, quarter galleries, beakhead and figurehead
• Three masts and bowsprit with full hand-knotted standing and running rigging
• Hand-stitched linen sails on every yard
• Ship's boats, capstan, wheel, gratings, ladders and rails
• Metal anchors and wooden rudder
• Heavy solid wood base with engraved brass nameplate
• Fully assembled — arrives crated

Before you order

Measure first, including mast height and bowsprit projection. A piece this size ships on a pallet by freight.

History

Built for Gustavus Adolphus and launched at Stockholm in 1628, Vasa carried two gun decks on a hull too narrow to support them. On 10 August 1628, on her maiden voyage, a light squall heeled her over; water poured through the open lower gunports and she sank about 1,300 metres from the quay, in full view of the crowd that had come to watch her leave. The cold, low-salinity Baltic kept shipworm out of her timbers for 333 years. She was raised almost intact in 1961 and is now the centrepiece of her own museum in Stockholm.