VASA... the most wonderful / Perfect Diver Magazine 19 issue

VASA... the most wonderful

Archaeology

Text MATEUSZ POPEK

Photos WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

On August 10, 1628, the Stockholm harbour was crowded with people whose eyes were focused on one place, where King Gustav II Adolf himself was standing.

Proud of his work, baptised his greatest ship, giving it the name "Vasa" to emphasise the greatnessof his dynasty. After a while, theship was proudly leaving the port settingthe topsails and the crowd cheered.As an unexpected gust of wind filled thesails, the ship leaned over, the king paledand the crowd fell silent.

In the 17th century, the Baltic Seawas an arena of constant fights. The Baltic states clashed, both on land and at sea. Galleon flotillas participated in spectacular battles. Among these troubled times one man stood out – commander, strategist, reformer, warrior, "Lion of the North", Gustav II Adolf, king of Sweden. He waged wars with Russia and Germany, reformed the army and made Sweden the hegemon of the Baltic Sea. However, he was most in conflict with the Republic of Poland, where his great-uncle, Sigismund III Vasa, was on the throne. Their conflict was not only political or family, but also symbolic.

Such a symbol of victory and domination was to be the greatest warship of all time, which Gustaw Adolf had built. Its splendor was supposed to outshine all the ships sailing on the Baltic Sea. The keel was laid in 1626 and the works lasted for two years. At that time, a huge ship was built, 61 meters long and more than 11 meters wide. Its buoyancy was 1,210 tons, and the crew consisted of 437 sailors. The ship was equipped with 64, guns, which was a formidable firepower at that time. The king personally supervised the construction and equipment of the ship, so that it would be second to none.

The entire ship was to be a floating declaration of the power of the Swedish king. The deck was decorated with sculptures referring to the Bible or Greek heroes. There are also sculptures of the king's worst enemies, i.e. Poles, placed in the bow of the ship. These figures were huddled under the benches, which was supposed to refer to the habit of "barking back" (the habit of making a slanderer back his or her wrong words). These sculptures were placed in such a way so that the sailors relieving themselves in the latrines could see them perfectly, knowing how to treat the enemies of the crown.

The main builder was a boatbuilder of Dutch origin Henrik Hybertsson, who died during the works. This caused some confusion in the construction, which was deepened by the constant changes made by the king iny. This one wanted the ship to be slender, but the largest, as well as the richly decorated superstructures to look great.

On the fateful day of August 16, 1628, the king, his court and all his subjects, gathered on the Stockholm quay, waited for the sail to be luffed. As the wind blew and the ship tilted, the crowd froze and the king paled. When the tilt persisted and water began to pour through the open dividing gates, Gustaw Adolf already knew that it would be a spectacular… catastrophe. After a while, the ship capsised and sank, dragging more than 30 sailors to the bottom.

Immediately after the disaster, a commission investigating the matter was established. The committee members accused Polish spies of sabotaging the project. They were accused of introducing technical sketches, changes that made the vessel unstable, which resulted in its sinking. The spies were never caught. However, it was implicitly known that the king's whims and his constant changes to the original design made the ship out of balance and unstable.

After the catastrophe, Vasa was not immediately erased from memory. In the 60s of the 17th century, the operation of extracting some cannons from the wreckage was carried out. A bell was used for this dive and it is one of the oldest operations of this type.

Time, however, passed inexorably and the position of the wreckage was forgotten, and the object itself became a legend. It was not until 1956 that the amateur archaeologist Anders Franzén found the wreckage. Quite quickly, a committee was formed to raise funds and equipment to recover the historic wreckage.

Five Swedish Navy divers under the command of Per Edvin Falting were commissioned to recover the huge wreckage. Their aim was to dig 6 tunnels under the unit through which the ropes needed to extract the object were pulled. Everything happened at a depth of 32 meters, with absolutely zero visibility. An amazing number of 1,300 dives was made during the Vasa extraction operation without any serious accident. After that, the wreck, attached to two pontoons, was excavated and transported to a dry dock.

The work of the divers during the extraction operation was immense and admirable. It is worth mentioning the professionalism and courage of these people, because at that time diving was not a hobby, but hard and extremely dangerous work. The dives took place in heavy classic equipment. The divers, who often were undersestimated, did a key job in the extraction. It should be remembered that it is still one of the largest and most spectacular wooden wreck extraction operations in the history of underwater diving and archeology.

Currently, the wreck can be seen in the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, where it is presented. It may be a chuckle of fate, but over 300 years after the disaster, the Vasa ship has become the largest and most spectacular wreck you can see. I wonder if Gustav II Adolf would like it…

PERFECTDIVER No. 1(19)/2022 51