The story about the Ship of Vasa is not particularly unheard of. And during our time in Stockholm, we got to visit the incredible museum, where the 396-year-old ship is being stored. How did the ship manage to sink only 30 minutes after leaving the harbor, and how was it possible that after over 300 years, the ship was still mostly intact and able to be put back together?

Located in Stockholm, Sweden, is the huge Vasa museum. This museum was built around the Vasa ship in the late 1900s and houses the absolute beast that is the Vasa ship, as well as some artifacts from the ship, such as cannons, statues, and the diving costume which was worn when the ship was discovered approximately 60 years ago.

While the ship was only discovered 63 years ago, the actual wreckage had been laying at the ocean floor of the Baltic sea for well over 300 years. Now while most ships would just degrade during this long of a time period, the ship of Vasa had the luck of being surrounded by mostly water with low salinity, which in turn prevented the ship from degrading and getting destroyed.

During our week in Stockholm for a school project, we had the opportunity to visit the museum housing the incredible ship, where the guide told us a little bit about the history, as well as some less known facts about the ship. The ship was originally discovered in 1956 by a diver named Anders Franzén. When the ship was first discovered, people were unsure how exactly it was supposed to look, as all the iron spikes holding the various statues and the cannon trapdoors had rusted, leading to them falling of the ship.

a picture from our trip. PICTURE: Melvin Stenlund. Image: Melvin Stenlund.

The museum began its construction in 1987 after a competition of architects who all sent in their designs, with the final design being submitted by Marianne Dahlbäck and Göran Månsson. Originally, the Vasa ship was held in a temporary structure where visitors could only view the ship from two levels, whilst it was being treated for protection. Once the new museum had begun construction, on and around an old dry dock, the Vasa ship was towed into the flooded dock, before the water was pumped out, leaving just the ship inside, during the construction of the museum around it. Within the museum, there is not only the ship itself, but various exhibits detailing the rescue and restoration processes, the history of the ship and much more.