Its beginnings were ill-fated – 333 years on the seabed after sinking minutes into its maiden voyage – but in the years since it was salvaged, the 17th-century Swedish warship Vasa has gone on to become one of Sweden’s most popular tourist attractions.
The vessel, however, now faces a fresh challenge to its survival as its conservators warn it is at risk of collapse if it does not get a new 150m kroner (£11.8m) support structure.
In order to ensure its long-term preservation, the Vasa Museum in Stockholm – where the ship has been on display since 1990 – says the ship urgently needs a replacement support “cradle” and a new internal support skeleton.
The launch of the extravagantly decorated ship, commissioned by Gustav II Adolf at the height of the Swedish empire, was intended to demonstrate the king’s power. It sank just 1,300 metres into its journey.
Since it was raised from the protective brackish waters of the Baltic in 1961, it has had an active afterlife and attracted more than 1 million visitors a year.
Magnus Olofsson, the project director at the museum, said the wood of the ship was already starting to fracture. “We have a lot of cracks already and we don’t want to have more,” he said, pointing to a diagonal split on the port side of the bow. “In the end, the ship would collapse.”
Vasa’s preservation problems are caused in part by its steel cradle, which it has laid in since 1964. Olofsson said it was putting too much pressure on the ship, creating cracks and deformations. Another factor is the wood, which is being chemically broken down from within by the pollution it absorbed in the sea.
“It builds acids and the acids destroy the wood and it can’t manage to bear the weight,” he said. A skeleton built inside the ship would help to protect it, he said.
But perhaps the most challenging element of the renovation process, due to start in the spring, is that all of the work needs to be carried out while keeping the ship completely still. They also plan to do it, bit by bit, while keeping the museum open.
“It’s a big job,” said Olofsson. “We have already been researching for four years to see how we are going to do it, and then we’ve been working on construction drawings for four years and now we are beginning the build, which will also take about four years.”
They have being carrying out test operations on full-scale models to make sure their plan will work. They do not, however, know exactly how much the vessel weighs. They estimate between 900 and 1,000 tonnes.
But the project is coming at a substantial cost, which the self-funded museum is appealing to donors and sponsors to finance. The museum’s director, Jenny Lind, said she was hopeful the Swedish public would come through to raise the funds to embark on the ship’s “biggest challenge” since its salvage and conservation.
“When Vasa was salvaged, the whole of Swedish society came together and made it possible to salvage this ship. It wasn’t just the state, it was private companies, big actors in society that helped out, but also private individuals,” she said. “So that’s why we’re coming out again and saying we need help again.”
Vasa, she said, is one of a kind. “There is no other preserved ship from the 1600s in this condition in the world.” While the Baltic plays a helpful role in preservation, it is also important to have ships like Vasa on public display, Lind said.
“To be able to see it like this in reality is unique because not everyone can dive direct and see [the wrecks] for themselves.”
