Monday, 27-May-2024
Somehow, my younger self never learned about the Vasa. When I was learning whistfully about the discovery and exploration of the Titanic, and the loss of the Edmund Fitzgerald, my education somehow skipped right over the sinking, refloating, and near-complete restoration of one of the largest age-of-sail warships ever constructed.
(Editor’s Note: Double-checking that statistic, it seems that Ben was under a misunderstanding… While the Vasa is, in fact, quite huge for its time and weighed in at ~1,200 tons displacement, it wasn’t comparable to the largest warships of the age of sail, which weighed in at ~6,900 tons displacement… though granted, those ships were launched nearly 250 years later)
In retrospect, though, that doesn’t surprise me too much. One of the interesting things that I’ve been realizing on this trip is just how England-focused my education has been. Sweden’s empire, for example, wasn’t ever covered in my New England schooling… instead, Great Britain’s empire was discussed, with a small footnote that some other countries may have also had empires around the same time…
Interesting, and a good thing to recognize the origin and limits of my knowledge.
After wandering around, finding closed museum after closed museum, seeing the Vasa Museum open was a pleasant and appreciated surprise. Granted, I arrived fairly close to closing time… Still, I had nearly an hour before the doors locked, and chatting with the docent gave me the intel that I could be confident that I’d be able to see most everything on offer in that time.
Off I went!
As can probably be guessed from the pictures above, the Vasa is huge. Like… seriously huge. Massive, towering above you as you first walk in, with preserved timbers looking just vaguely damaged and degraded enough to know that, while this is undoubtedly a ghost ship, it’s at least more “living” than “undead” at this point.
As has been the theme to this adventure, I wandered.
Through exhibits about the building, launch, and immediate sinking, to the discovery and re-floating. (Seriously. The Vasa was launched, sailed 1,300m, and immediately sank. A small gust of wind capsized it. Turns out, science has come a long way.) The glorious placards detailed the restoration process, what life about would have been like if it has made it out of the harbor, and even discussed the tribunal that convened afterward to assess what happened and who was to blame. (They found that the King was to blame… and so obviously no one was to blame, and the whole thing was quickly swept under the rug.)
In the end, I made it out with about 5min to spare. I even had a quick hot minute to look through the gift shop before meandering off on my way to the next adventure…
