https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)
The ship was built on the orders of the King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus as part of the military expansion he initiated in a war with Poland-Lithuania (1621–1629). She was constructed at the navy yard in Stockholm under a contract with private entrepreneurs in 1626–1627 and armed primarily with bronze cannons cast in Stockholm specifically for the ship. Richly decorated as a symbol of the king’s ambitions for Sweden and himself, upon completion she was one of the most powerfully armed vessels in the world. However, Vasa was dangerously unstable, with too much weight in the upper structure of the hull. Despite this lack of stability, she was ordered to sea and sank only a few minutes after encountering a wind stronger than a breeze.
The order to sail was the result of a combination of factors. The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the reserve squadron at Älvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago. At the same time the king’s subordinates lacked the political courage to openly discuss the ship’s problems or to have the maiden voyage postponed. An inquiry was organized by the Swedish Privy Council to find those responsible for the disaster, but in the end no one was punished.
Obligatory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronan_(ship)
Kronan, also called Stora Kronan,[1] was a Swedish warship that served as the flagship of the Swedish Navy in the Baltic Sea in the 1670s. When built, the ship was one of the largest seagoing vessels in the world. The construction of Kronan lasted from 1668 to 1672 and was delayed by difficulties with financing and conflicts between the shipwright Francis Sheldon and the Swedish admiralty. After four years of service, the ship sank in rough weather at the Battle of Öland on 1 June 1676: while making a sharp turn under too much sail she capsized, and the gunpowder magazine ignited and blew off most of the bow. Kronan sank quickly, taking about 800 men and more than 100 guns with her, along with valuable military equipment, weapons, personal items, and large quantities of silver and gold coins.
Wow, the Vikings really lost their touch after going Christian, huh?
my favourite factoid as to why the ship was so unstable:
dutch shipwrights were generally considered the best in the world at the time, and many of them were hired to work on the vasa. they were involved in the drafting as well as the actual building. but because half the builders were swedish, the plans were made with no text on them, only units. so the decks would be marked as so-and-so feet tall, so-and-so feet wide, etc. also, to ease communication issues, the builders were split by language, with the swedes building the port side and the dutch the starboard.
now, there is no evidence this, it’s been extrapolated from relevant history and the state of the wreck, but the story goes that the reason the vasa is ever so slightly asymmetrical is because the swedish foot was slightly longer than the dutch.
Edit: also, little known fact: the vasa has a sister ship: Äpplet. she was finished a little later and led a far more successful life, in that she lasted through the thirty-year war, but she shared a fundamental problem with the vasa: nobody needed a ship that big. äpplet was deliberately sunk in one of the outlets in the stockholm archipelago in order to create an obstacle, and was only rediscovered five years ago.
I’ve seen this ship two times, and can confirm that the gentle breeze did in fact win.
And the loo is over a carving of a Polish noble.
