Ship of the 17th century, which has been preserved almost in its original form (12 photos)

Many of us like to lie in the evening or on weekends. sofa and watch some interesting movie. Someone loves horror someone detectives, but someone is fond of adventure films and preferably with a historical bias.





Agree, sometimes it's so nice to escape from the pressing problems and visit the heroes of some adventure film on board a real ship, go with a team of pirates under full sail to a desert island in search of treasure. When you watch such films, you literally feel the fresh sea breeze and salty the scent of the sea. Surely many dreamed of visiting a real old ship, walk along the deck, go down into the hold, or at least one a glimpse of one of these masterpieces of shipbuilding of the past. A today such a dream is quite possible to realize. There is a museum in Stockholm where the real sailing Swedish ship is on display 17 century, the flagship of the Royal Swedish Navy.



This ship is called "Vase" or "Vasa", in honor of the dynasty of Swedish kings that reigned at that time. It is unique in that has survived to this day in its original form. But his story sad. It is sad in the sense that, being built and lowered on the water, he almost immediately sank, and at the first exit from Stockholm harbour. But first things first. Laid down the construction ship in 1626 at the shipyard of the navy. The work was supervised Dutch master Hubertsson. The new ship was to be unique of its kind. It was intended to accommodate more number of guns of various calibers. In fact, he was supposed to be the most the largest and most armed ship among the ships of those countries that have had access to the Baltic Sea. It was this flagship that was supposed to demonstrate the greatness of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden and declare their rights to dominate the region.





King of Sweden Gustav II Adolf.

The construction was supervised by the king himself, he also approved it size and armament. The ship was really big, its length was 69 meters, width 11.7 meters, and height 52.5 meters. Flagship had 64 bronze cannons placed on two decks. IN about 400 people took part in the construction, and for materials cut down an oak grove with about 1000 trees. Of course, royal the ship was supposed to inspire awe not only with its weapons, but also with its greatness, so only the best craftsmen worked on it, who richly decorated it with carved figures and various decorative elements. But during the construction, the unforeseen happened, in 1627 year Henrik Hubertsson, who was entrusted with the construction of an unexpected died, and now Blasienholmen Hein Jacobsson is in charge of the shipbuilder shipyards. Be that as it may, the ship was completed in the autumn of the same year, and he was thrown into the water.



Ship "Vase" in the museum

Already in January 1628, Vasa was moored at royal palace, where he stood until August. Exactly in August loading began before going to sea. Food was loaded cannons, cannonballs, gunpowder, and ballast. The crew of the ship consisted of 100 people, but in addition to this, their families were also on board, since there was a big celebration on the occasion of the ship's going to sea. Day turned out to be pretty good, sunny, but the wind sometimes blew quite impetuous, although nothing foreshadowed trouble. And now the ends are given, the team raise the porus sounded.



Beautiful stern of the ship.



But as soon as the sails were filled with wind, the ship became list on board, but for the first time they were able to straighten it. But in the second once, almost at the exit from the bay, he was so tilted on board that sea water began to pour into the holes for the cannons, into the so-called ports and the ship quickly began to sink under water. When help came from coast, the ship was no longer visible, it completely sank. Rescuers pulled out of the water those who could survive on the water until the arrival help. The number of dead is not known for certain, the figures are different.



Beautiful stern of the ship

What caused the tragedy is also not completely clear. perhaps a design error, or maybe the wrong actions of the team. The failed flagship of the Swiss fleet, perhaps it would have lain at the bottom of the sea until the end of time, if not for one smart engineer named after Anders Fransen and a group of like-minded people. He decided he would find a ship that sank 300 years ago and if you're lucky will raise it from bottom of the sea. The exact location of the flood was not known, only an approximate one, therefore, the bottom was combed with a special tool invented Fransen. At some point, a fragment of a tree was found. Researchers carefully studied the bottom and soon a board with two rows of cannon ports, there was no doubt that they had found the same ship. It happened in 1956. When the find was more attentive studied, it turned out that the ship was preserved literally in perfect condition, so it was decided to raise it to the surface.



Engineer Anders Fransen.

There were many ways to do this, but still decided to let the cables run under the ship and lift them on pontoons. Preparation It took a lot of time to get up, but it was worth it. In the spring of 1961, the masts of the ship "Vaza" again appeared above the surface. The ideal safety of the ship is explained simply, the conditions in the Baltic the sea perfectly conserved the find. However, after lifting it and transportation to the port of final registry, the restorers carried out a unique work on the restoration and preservation of the now museum exhibit.



Ship "Vase"

Interestingly, the museum building was built around the ship. AND now anyone can see with their own eyes the amazing a ship that came to us straight from the 17th century and survived literally in its original form.



Ship layout. This is how it looked originally