Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Marine archaeologists in Sweden say they have found the sister vessel of a famed 17th century warship that sank on its maiden voyage and is now on display in a popular Stockholm museum.
The wreck of the royal warship Vasa was raised in 1961, remarkably well preserved, after more than 300 years underwater in the Stockholm harbor. Visitors can admire its intricate wooden carvings at the Vasa Museum, one of Stockholm's top tourist attractions.
Its sister warship, Applet (Apple), was built around the same time as the Vasa on the orders of Swedish King Gustav II Adolf.
Unlike the Vasa, which keeled over and sank just minutes after leaving port in 1628, the sister ship was launched without incident the following year and remained in active service for three decades. It was sunk in 1659 to become part of an underwater barrier mean to protect the Swedish capital from enemy fleets.
The exact location of the wreck was lost over time but marine archaeologists working for Vrak—the Museum of Wrecks in Stockholm—say they found a large shipwreck in December 2021 near the island of Vaxholm, just east of the capital.
"Our pulses spiked when we saw how similar the wreck was to Vasa," said Jim Hansson, one of the archaeologists. "Both the construction and the powerful dimensions seemed very familiar."
Experts were able to confirm that it was the long-lost Applet by analyzing its technical details, wood samples and archival data, the museum said in a statement on Monday.
[...] No decision has been taken on whether to raise the ship, which would be a costly and complicated endeavor.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday October 26 2022, @01:44PM (6 children)
It's always interesting how these things become lost to time. Even tho it was just a few centuries ago and they have fairly good records of it being ordered and what it did as they were warships. Vasa was a particular failure of a ship in that regard, but then this was a time before they did much calculations in regards to stability but more just built ships on feelings and previous knowledge. It also didn't help that the shipbuilding in charge died during the construction so an apprentice took over to complete it. After all ships of the same type built later all survived, or survived for as long as warships tended to survive at the time. A lot of them was lost or didn't last more then a few years since there was quite a few wars with Denmark at the time. Several of them perished and was later found around Öland as that was a common place for the Danish and Swedish navy to meet up and do battle at the time. So the Baltic sea is sort of filled with them at various common battlegrounds. Oddly enough Denmark usually wins the naval battle and then try to follow up with a land invasion (or more correct they do the naval battle to secure the option of a land invasion) and promptly gets smashed in the face. A few centuries of wars vs Sweden just didn't end very well for Denmark in the long run, as evident that Sweden is now swedish and not danish.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_battle_of_%C3%96land_(1564) [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_warship_Mars [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_%C3%96land [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronan_(ship) [wikipedia.org]
That said none of them have been raised to build a Vasa like museum, or I guess it has been suggested but it's a massive $ sink and then there is the question of where the museum should be located that somehow never gets answered. I guess everyone wants a free museum built by the government but they can't agree on the location. As it should be built somewhere to pull in the tourists etc.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday October 26 2022, @02:09PM (4 children)
Go on, Mr Ikea, earn yourself some tax credits and take a hit on this...
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday October 26 2022, @02:19PM (2 children)
First of all you'd have to raise 'Mr. IKEA' [wikipedia.org] and reanimate him.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday October 26 2022, @03:02PM
While Ingvar is dead the company and the foundation lives on. Every time you go out to IKEA and buy something a little fraction of that purchase trickles down to the foundation. They already do sponsor a lot of things and they give a lot of grants to science and to several local universities, the usual buildings and entire departments -- design and something with forestry as I recall it. Don't know if they would be in a market for a large scale museum and pulling another old ship up from the bottom of the Baltic.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday October 26 2022, @03:23PM
Probably has some screws missing.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday October 26 2022, @03:11PM
It might work cause Vasa sank in Stockholm. So it's a museum in a capital that pulls in a lot of tourists and have a million+ population to begin with. It might be somewhat more problematic if you where to raise say Kronan (mentioned and linked previously). There is no big city around. The largest would be Kalmar, they already have a permanent exhibit to the artifacts they pulled up from that particular ship. Still it's a fairly small city (50-60k pop but it's a big summer city that pulls a lot of tourists and it also already have an amazing castle). Putting it anywhere on Öland would probably be a massive failure, small pop, a long way to pull in the tourists. It does pull a lot of tourists during the summer but it is probably not enough. Karlskrona would be another option, even tho it's a bit to the south. Large naval presence there already, they have a naval museum so I'm sure they would love it but it's a bit far away. Also while the town is similar in size to Kalmar it doesn't pull anyway near the same amount of tourists as Kalmar/Öland does. So it might not be feasible. Also IKEA tends to put Småland over the states when it does things and Karlskrona is not in Småland.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday October 26 2022, @03:38PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship) [wikipedia.org]
I'll have to differ with part of your post. Shipbuilding was understood when Vasa was built, quite well. True, they didn't have today's calculation methods to figure out what the righting arms, center of gravity, etc, but they understood an awful lot. Today's math gives a lot more precision than they could have achieved in the 17th century, but the concepts were understood.
During construction, a lot of people expressed concerns about the Vasa's seaworthiness. None of those people felt that they could approach the king, to discuss those concerns. The king wanted what he wanted, and he didn't discuss things with his subordinates. The king sank the Vasa by insisting that she be fitted with 24 pound guns, all around, lower deck and upper deck. Vasa was top heavy because of those guns.
The ship's master had a hand in sinking her, because he didn't order the lower gun deck ports closed before putting out to sea. Had those ports been closed, Vasa may have survived long enough for everyone to decide that the upper gun deck had to be lightened. Had those 24 pound guns been replaced with 12 pound guns, Vasa may well have lived a long and glorious career.
There were other problems, of course, but those two problems were what killed her.
It didn't help that the two crews working on opposite sides of the ship were using different units of measure. Port and starboard didn't quite match up, as a result, but there is little evidence that those mistakes would have been fatal.
Being top heavy, and failing to secure the lower gun ports killed Vasa.
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