Last weekend we had a visitor, who cannot be named for legal reasons (he's too old)- let's just call him Sven. Anyway, we thought we'd take Sven on a sight seeing tour of Stockholm (Well actually that wasn't the case nor did we come up with the suggestion) and ended up choosing the Vasa Museum on Djurgården.
For reasons of lack of the green stuff (even though we don't have dollars I know) is probably the tight arse reason why we didn't go in there before, but forgetting we have student discount and a frivolous Sven leading the way, we took a gander at the sight that is the Vasa.
And what a sight it was. Some 60m long and weighing a potential 1200 tonnes, this well armed, apparently brightly coloured ship stood, mostly in tact (for now at least) and had people gazing at its beauty.
Amongst the awe lies a pretty funny, albeit tragic story. Now this beast built over two years, from 1626 to 1628 was built as the pride of King Gustavus fleet, to join them fighting in the Thirty Years War (again Protestants vs Catholics...you know, the usual). However, Henrik Hybertsson (note, Dutch born-hmmm) the shipbuilder continued to build a boat, basically with no plans or design, with little ballast, meaning any lateral force (from the sides) i.e. wind, could easily tip over. Coupled with top heavy weight, this was not a good combination.
No surprises that on its maiden voyage in 1628, a gust a wind blew the thing over and it sank just a few 100m from its launch site. So the boat itself is sort of mounted on a frame and supports, but there are some major storage problems even now (which I wont go in to). Needless to say, I'm glad I've seen it and understood a little about the history and what not, especially with the idea that it could (effectively) rot away. It truelly is as useful as a handbrake in a canoe.
If only the 'engineers' who designed it would have teamed up with their fellow Volvo compatriots, then something a wee bit more reliable would have been produced, but I guess we wouldn't be seeing it in all its glory, sitting patiently on a little island in Stockholm.
For reasons of lack of the green stuff (even though we don't have dollars I know) is probably the tight arse reason why we didn't go in there before, but forgetting we have student discount and a frivolous Sven leading the way, we took a gander at the sight that is the Vasa.
And what a sight it was. Some 60m long and weighing a potential 1200 tonnes, this well armed, apparently brightly coloured ship stood, mostly in tact (for now at least) and had people gazing at its beauty.
Amongst the awe lies a pretty funny, albeit tragic story. Now this beast built over two years, from 1626 to 1628 was built as the pride of King Gustavus fleet, to join them fighting in the Thirty Years War (again Protestants vs Catholics...you know, the usual). However, Henrik Hybertsson (note, Dutch born-hmmm) the shipbuilder continued to build a boat, basically with no plans or design, with little ballast, meaning any lateral force (from the sides) i.e. wind, could easily tip over. Coupled with top heavy weight, this was not a good combination.
No surprises that on its maiden voyage in 1628, a gust a wind blew the thing over and it sank just a few 100m from its launch site. So the boat itself is sort of mounted on a frame and supports, but there are some major storage problems even now (which I wont go in to). Needless to say, I'm glad I've seen it and understood a little about the history and what not, especially with the idea that it could (effectively) rot away. It truelly is as useful as a handbrake in a canoe.
If only the 'engineers' who designed it would have teamed up with their fellow Volvo compatriots, then something a wee bit more reliable would have been produced, but I guess we wouldn't be seeing it in all its glory, sitting patiently on a little island in Stockholm.
