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Vasa carried at least two boats and possibly three. The main boat, or esping, was a flat-bottomed vessel with 16 oars and a sailing rig. It was 11.7 m long, 3.16 m wide and weighed about 3 tonnes empty. We have the boat itself, as well as most of its equipment, including the rig. This boat was carrying a smaller clinker-built boat inside it, and remains of a third boat, a smaller version of the esping, were found near the stern.

The ship Vasa is owned by the Swedish state, through the Swedish National Maritime and Transport Museums (SMTM), which is responsible for caring for, preserving and making the ship available to the public. SMTM is an authority that reports to the Ministry of Culture. Vasa Museum part of SMTM as are following museums: * The National Maritime Museum, Stockholm * Vrak – Museum of Wrecks, Stockholm * The Naval Museum, Karlskrona * Swedish Railway Museum, Gävle.

The Vasa Museum published a book, about the sculptures, in Swedish 2020, and in English 2021:  "Vasa's sculptures. A story of Power."  (Anna Maria Forssberg ed). You can order this book through the Vasa Museum's Shop.  The best information available in English is Hans Soops doctoral thesis: The Power and the Glory. The sculptures of the warship Wasa (1986). Other articles on the sculptures on Vasa: * Why was Vasa given the name Vasa?  Information regarding the Vasa Museum's Shop: * Can I place an order from the shop?  * Can I visit the Museum shop without buying a ticket?  * What is the Museum Shop's opening hours?   

The transcript of the inquest, consist of eight pages, are available on The Vasa Museum's website although in Swedish; one JPG-file for each authentic page, and one PDF-document with the transcript. On the same website you can also find the inquest of Captain Söfring.   Click here to get access to the transcript in Enlish: Partial transcript of inquest into sinking of Vasa.pdf. Dr. Fred Hocker, Director of Research at the Vasa Museum, has translated parts of the transcript and made some comments in the document.

There are actually many reason to why the ship where so well kept after 333 years in the water. One of the reasons are the polluted water and another is the low oxygen content in the Baltic sea. The main reason why Vasa is so well kept is the fact that the ship sank whole and in brackish water. (Brackish water is a mix of salt and sweet water.) Brackish water does not have shipworm, which would otherwise have cause great damage to the wood. Shipworm eats wood that is in the water.  We have many shipwrecks in Swedish water, but only one that was completely whole when it sank, and that is why we still have 98 % of Vasa left to show our visitors at the Vasa Museum.

The sheaf of grain was the heraldic symbol of the Swedish royal family at the time of king Gustav II Adolf (reign: 1611–1632). His grandfather was the famous king Gustav Vasa and his daughter later became Queen Christina. The word vasa (or vase) means ”sheaf of grain”, although in old Swedish. This symbol can be seen on the ship, both at the figure head (between the paws of the lion), and at the stern (in the Coat of arms of Sweden). The strategically placed sheaf of grain on the transom gave its name to the ship – the equivalent of today's practice, where the name is written in letters at the hull. If you want to know more about the sculptures on Vasa's transom, please find the informtion on Vasa Museum's website.

The male skeletons found on Vasa range in height between 160 cm and 176 cm, with an average of 165-166 cm. This is the result of osteological analysis carried out by Ebba Düring and published in the book "De dog på Vasa" in 1994 – which is based on science, but written for the general public. Although some of the results are out-dated and no longer valid. If you want to read more about the avarage height of Vasa's crew in English, please look into Kvaal, S. & During, E. (1999). "A dental study comparing age estimations of the human remains from the Swedish warship Vasa". International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 9: pp. 170–181. In Dr. Fred Hocker's , Director of Research at the Vasa Museum, book "Vasa. A swedish warship", you will find an oversight about what we know about the crew. We are currently launching a research project about the crew based on written sources, human remains and personal belongings found on the ship. Hopefully we will know more soon.

Exclusion of oxygen would slow degradation rates further. However, we have seen in recent studies, that the oxygen related changes in Vasa’s wood occurred fairly soon after the raising of the ship, as the iron and sulphur contaminated wood was exposed to air and still wet. According to these studies, oxygen related reactions taking place today are slow, and will not affect the wood significantly in the coming hundred years. The conserved and dry wood fares well in the stabilised and controlled museum climate. The changes we see, and do research to foresee, will be taken care of through the right dimensioning and design of a new support system for the ship. On Vasa Museum's website you can find more information about Vasa's preservation, and Vasa's new support and much more. If you want to help us to preserve Vasa for future generation, please click here for more information about donation and support Vasa.  

It is impossible to say what the salvage cost, except to say that it cost the people of Sweden next to nothing. All of the preparatory diving work, digging the tunnels under the ship, rigging the lift, etc. was carried out by the divers of the navy and coastal artillery as part of their annual proficiency training, which was already budgeted by the navy. The lift itself was carried out by the Neptune Salvage Company at no cost (they were allowed to use the project in their advertising). The project spent a small amount of money on a handful of salaries and the purchase of incidentals, but the majority of the cost was never accounted. Modern estimates of what it would take to raise a similar ship from a similar depth typically range between 50 and 100 million Euros, but no one really knows what it would take until someone tries it! Perhaps you are also interested in knowing more about: * Where was the longboat kept during the voyage? 

We actually know the construction cost, there was an accounting after the ship was complete, which survives. It gives the total cost of the hull as 53 300 daler (the Swedish unit of currency until the 18th century), the rigging as 6 500 daler. In overall terms, this is not actually very much money, as it was spread over four budget years. It is roughly 1000 times an average sailor's annual pay, and only a twentieth of the cost of hiring a regiment of cavalry for a campaigning season. The guns were worth much more than the ship, probably in excess of 100 000 daler. Of the hull cost, about 25% is timber, 33% iron (nails,anchors, other hardware), and the rest the cost of the labor.

  The three masts on Vasa Museum's roof is supposed to symbolize the total height of the ship when all the masts where up. The main mast (the tallest one in the middle) was about 52 meters from the keel to the top.

  Many of our visitors have visited the Vasa Museum extensively in the 1960–70s and majority of 1980s. From their visit they have a recollection of seeing the Vasa, and comments how different it looks compared to today.   Vasa was located in a temporary museum building, called the Wasavarvet, which opened in 1961. Inside this museum the public could follow the preservation of Vasa. A photo of Wasavarvet can be found on Wikipedia (link leads to an external website).   In 1988 Vasa was moved to a new building: the Vasa Museum. The current building that house the ship is purposely built for Vasa and is the permanent museum.   Some parts of the old museum remain and is today a tram hall. Previously the premises was a museum, called the Aquaria Water Museum. Unfortunately, the Aquaria Water Museum closed permanently on 30 September 2018.

The national coat of arms with siding lions and the Vasa coat of arms are all cut out from oak.

The cost to maintain Vasa as she lays now, is very complicated to calculate. There are too many factors to consider and they are intertwined with the cost of the running of the museum. There is the rent of the museum to consider, which include the climate system; the staff that works in the museum; the research that is being done and the actual day to day maintenance. Compared to the cost of the salvation and conservation of the Vasa, this is relative small amounts. We do not know exactly.

This is a difficult question to answer accurately, since many of the dimensions varied. For example, the upper gundeck is 1.7 meters tall at the bow, 1.9 meters amidships, and 1.85 meters near the stern. The ship has seven levels in all. Four of these extend the length of the ship. These are the hold, which varies in height between 1.8 m and 2.9 m, the orlop (1.1 m to 1.4 m), the lower gundeck (1.6 to 1.7 m), and the upper gundeck (dimensions above). The upper deck, which extends over about two thirds of the length is open to the sky. In the sterncastle, there are three levels. The upper cabin has a height of 1.8 to 1.9 m, the poop cabin is only 1.5 m tall, and the poop deck is open to the sky. We cannnot yet accurately calculate the weight of each deck, due to the complex structure. The mast heights (from the bottom of the keel) are: Foremast:47.0 m Mainmast: 52.4 m Mizzenmast: 39.4 m These heights are estimates, since the upper parts of the masts did not survive and we have reconstructed the length on the basis of rigging rules from the period.

You access a large part of our collection through DigitaltMuseum (the link leads to external website) where you can freely search among the artefacts. One group of objects with information available in English is the sculptures, while making all artefact information available in English is on-going work. You can also find information on our artefacts through Vasa Musuem's website, we recommend that you look into Find in focus.

98% of Vasa is authentic. The missing parts have been replaced with parts of wood that is lighter in color, so that you can see the difference.

Vasa was ordered by King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in 1625–1626. It took about two years to build the ship at Skeppsgården, the place that is now called Blasieholmen, in Stockholm. The master shipbuilder was from Holland and his name was Henrik Hybertsson. He had lived in Stockholm for several years and knew both Dutch and Swedish, which was an advantage, as both Dutch and Swedish shipbuilders worked at the shipyard. The number of workers at the shipyard that build the ship was about 300 people. They did everything from sawing up oak logs, carving sculptures, forging nails, etc. Several different professional roles were represented at the shipyard. 

Vasa was built to be Sweden's flagship for the reserve fleet. It was richly decorated with sculptures and new modern cannons, intended to impress the Swedish enemy: Poland. Vasa was war propaganda in the form of a ship and therefore an important symbol for Sweden, with the purpose to boast Sweden's power and wealth. Vasa was to sail out into the Stockholm archipelago, to Älvsnabben, where the fleet had a base and the possibility to take on board soldiers and equipments. There Vasa was suppose to wait for King Gustavus Adolphus further orders. Admittedly, the ship was known to be unstable. The king's men were, however, under huge pressure from Gustavus Adolphus, who had waiting for the ship, which construction had been delayed. As the destination was Älvsnabben and not Poland, it was conidered that Vasa would make it all the way to the destination.

Vasa's hull weighed about 600 000 kg. On departure, Vasa's displacement was 1 200 000–1 250 000 kg, which includes the ballast, equipment, provisions and everything else that was on board at the time of sailing. The ship was missing soldiers, who were supposed to have boarded at Älvsnabben. With the soldiers, the displacement would have increased by approx. 17 000 kg. About 100 ton of provisions would also be loaded there. If we count this, the total weight in battle would be closer to 1 300 000–1 350 000 kg.

We estimate that Vasa weigh around 800 000–900 000 kg, as the ship is today inside the museum, which mean that we have included the weight of the mast, rigging and several thousand kg of preservatives.

Ships of Vasa's type were not easy to sail, nor fast sailing. At most you could sail at maybe 10 knots (1 knot = 1 nautical mile per hour = 1.8 km/h, which means that Vasa's maximum speed was 18 km/h). Avarge speed was 5 knots, back in 1628.  Often you had to wait a long time for a favorable wind, before you could set sails. Favorable wind for Vasa meant reasonably strong and preferably not from the front or obliquely from the front. Vasa sailed best with wind from astern. This type of ship was not optimal for tacking, as the risk to push off course was more likely to happen. Sailing across the Baltic Sea could take two days or five weeks!

Vasa's maiden voyage first destination was Vaxholm, one of many islands in the Stockholm archipelago, to drop of some guests that was on board the ship. The final destination for the ship was the fleet's summer base Älvsnabben, where they would await further orders to sail to the war against Poland. The 300 soldiers was supposed to go on borad Vasa once the order to set sail for war was made by king Gustavus Adolphus. Together the soldiers would make up two-thirds of Vasa's crew.  You can read more about Vasa's history on our website: https://www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/vasa-history

The Vasa Museum is partly built on top of a drydock (Galärvarvsdockan). The front part of the dock was not covered and can be found at the entrance to the museum. In the summer, it is filled with water, and there you can see a copy of the Zetterström nozzle, a tool that the divers used when they dug tunnels under the Vasa's hull, during the salvage of the ship. When the museum was built, one end of the building, the one by the water, and the opening of the dock, were left open. In September 1988, preparations to move Vasa from Wasavarvet (the old museum building) began. The ship was wrapped in a protective shell, and resting on a pontoon, she was moved by sea to the new museum in December of the same year. At the front, the ship was placed in the dock. Slowly they began to let the water out of the dry dock and then build the wall that was missing. The pontoon Vasa was towed into the museum on, is today the floor of the museum's lowest level. On the website you can see a photograph of what it looked like when the Vasa was towed into its new museum; http://www.vasamuseet.se/sv/Skeppet/Vasa-idag/ 

We believe that Vasa's longboat was towed with a rope, and pulled after Vasa. There are two ways to transport a longboat in the 17th century, and there are pros and cons with both of them: 1. Towing the longboat 2. Having the longboat on board on the upper deck. This is explaind in detail, under the title "Location" that you can find our website: Espingen – Vasa's longboat

There were at least two live animals aboard, a pair of cats, probably on board to control the rat population. Unfortunately, we know about them because they did not survive and some of their bones are in our collection. Both cats were not yet fully grown, but already much bigger than normal house cats, more like Norwegian forest cats in size. We also have some chicken bones that include skulls, which suggest the chickens were whole, so there could have been live chickens on board to lay eggs. All of the other animal bones show marks from butchering, so they were provisions (salted meat).

The first Vasa Museum (Wasavarvet) was located about 300 meter från the current Vasa Museum. Today you can find tram halls on the same site that Wasavarvet used to be.

When ships were built in the 17th century, it was primarily oak that was used. Oak is a a strong and durable material, which is particularly suitable when building a warship. As for Vasa, it is mostly built of oak. The entire hull is of oak and some of the sculptures are made of oak. Other sculptures are made of wood from linden trees. The masts, on the other hand, are made of pine.

The decomposition of wood in the Baltic Sea is a very slow process, as the oxygen and salinity levels as well as the temperature are low. When Vasa was salvaged, the wood came into contact with oxygen, and a number of decomposing reactions started. Substances that previously were stored in the wood also have an influence in the degradation, above all sulfur and iron in various forms. The degradation of Vasa has resulted in the strength of Vasa's wood being greatly reduced, among other things. However, if Vasa had not been salvaged, we would not have been able to experience and learn from the magnificent source of knowledge the ship is. Based on the research that has been carried out, we believe that the strongest impact occurred during the time immediately after the salvage, and that the degradation has now slowed down. To make sure of this, we continue to investigate the rate of degradation together with researchers. Among important measures that have already been implemented, and are underway, are a stabilized climate in the museum and improved support of the ship. The work to preserve Vasa is continuous and can be of help to other museums in the world – in their work with preservation of wooden objects.

Vasa had 120 tons of stone ballast on board.  Stone was the typical material for ballast until the latter part of the 18th century, when iron began to be used. Durint the 17th century, old cannons or other metal objects were sometimes used as ballast.

On the 10th of August 1628 there was between 150-200 people onboard Vasa when the ship sank. Around 30-50 of them died. Many survived beacuse they where standing on deck when the ship started to heal over and were able to save them self by jumping in the water. There was a lot of boats around the ship that could help save the people in the water and also close to the shore. Inger, educator officer answers: "We cannot say exactly how many perished. There are three contemporary letters from different persons which state about 50, 40 and 30 respectively. In the joint letter of the Council to the King two days after the accident they say that most escaped and that it is not possible to do not yet know how many remained in the depths because muster did not have time to be held. These written records, plus our actual skeletal finds are what we have to go on. Probably a few more died than we have skeletons, but they were picked up and buried and then we don't "see" them in the sources. That's why, then as now, different numbers circulate." In the exhibition "Face to face" you can find out more about the people who followed the Vasa down into the depths. Read more about the exhibition here; https://www.vasamuseet.se/en/visit/exhibitions/face-to-face

In 1956, Anders Franzén located Vasa outside Beckholmen in Stockholm. In the same year, diving began at the wreck site. The date that the Vasa broke the water's surface in 1961 was April 24, a few minutes after 9 in the morning, and the whole world watched. There are many dates and times circulating and it is probably because the preparations went on for several years underwater. Tunnels were dug under the ship to get the wires in place and it was lifted in eighteen stages to shallower water, closer to land. This mainly took place in 1958-59 and is usually also counted as salvage. You can read more about the exhibition ‘The Salvaging’ on our website: https://www.vasamuseet.se/en/visit/exhibitions/salvaging

In the work to identify Vasa's colours, the first step is to find preserved fragments on the surface of the wood. It is important to systematically study the wood very closely. In some cases, painted surfaces are visible to the naked eye, but the examinations are also carried out using a microscope. In order to be able to identify pigments, analysis of elements is required, which during the investigations of Vasa's colours was done through electron microscopy. Thus, close to 20 different pigments could be confirmed in Vasa's colour trace. At the Vasa Museum we have two exhibitions showcasing the colours that Vasa was painted in. 1. In the exhibition The Power and the Glory, we show which pigments were used in the painting of the sculptures. 2. In the exhibition Vasa Up Close, we show painted copies of sculptures that were on Vasa.