The famous Russian shipbuilder Academician Alexey Krylov claimed that the Titanic “perished like ancient Babylon from corrupt luxury.” Meanwhile, the Titanic is not the only ship that fell victim to ambition and incompetence. The ship Vasa did it even earlier. The world's only surviving sailing ship of the early seventeenth century was named after the dynasty of Swedish kings of today. The monarchs made the most of it: the largest warship in the Swedish navy and the rest of the Baltic was also supposed to be the most luxurious. More than a thousand oaks were cut down to build the ship. They recruited the best Swedish craftsmen for the construction: carpenters, carvers and smiths. 64 cannons weighing, 80 tons were cast in bronze, the ship's hull was richly decorated with carved gilded sculptures... They kept building and building, and finally built it, making a lot of engineering mistakes along the way. The ship was 69 meters long and 52 meters high from the keel to the top of the mainmast and was less than 12 meters wide. The ship Vasa was built in three years, but it sailed only for one day. On 10 August 1628, at a large gathering of people, the ship set sail from the Royal Palace in Stockholm, but it did not leave the harbor either. Some blame the cannons that gave the salute, some blame the strong wind. The ship tilted, water gushed into the cannon ports, and the Vasa sank right in front of the public. In 1961 it was resurfaced almost intact, since there are no woodworms in the Baltic Sea. Today it is admired in a purpose-built museum in Stockholm.
Another events
Information provided by the Scientific Russia News Agency. Media outlet’s registration certificate: IA No. FS77-62580 issued by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media on July 31, 2015.
Partners
Show allOur mobile application
Social networking
Recent
Popular
Lectures
829
Billions of dollars are spent on research in the field of laser thermonuclear fusion. Why is it needed and what successful experiments have already been done? Speaker: Mikhail Leonidovich Shmatov, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
Archive
16.10.2012
16.10.2012
13.08.2014
05.02.2013
31.07.2014