The Vasa Piglet – Super Facts

This is not a Super Fact post, but it features some interesting facts that have to do with the Vasa Museum Stockholm. It is a bit of trivia and not shocking or disputed information. I am currently traveling in Scandinavia with my oldest son and his wife. This is why I have not been active blogging for a while. By the way, today is his birthday.

This post is about the Swedish warship Vasa. Vasa (or Wasa) was built between 1626 and 1628, and it tipped and sank on its maiden voyage. It was the largest war ship in the world at the time. The cold and brackish waters of this part of the Baltic were free from shipworms and the ship was only 32 meters down below. This made it possible to salvage the ship with a largely intact hull, which was done in 1961.

The Vasa Museum with its huge and impressive 400-year-old war ship is open to the public and a visit does not take long. It is one of the easy must-see destinations for visitors to Stockholm. It is an example of how a big fiasco can be turned into a wonder of the world.

The War Ship Vasa sank in 1628 and salvaged in 1961. It is very well preserved and is on display to the public at the Vasa Museum Stockholm. This photo is taken from a distance. It is not my photo.

At the time there was a big war in Europe, the thirty-year war, fought mainly between protestants and catholic regions. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million people died in this war. Sweden got involved in this war on the protestant side and fought Poland and Lithuania. This war served as a motivation for building Vasa. The reason the Vasa ship tipped over was that the center of gravity was too high. There were too many cannons, ornaments, and the large hull, basically too much stuff, too high up.

An enhanced photo of the Vasa Ship from the museum.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the bottom floor. My son is standing on the right in a green and black shirt.

A note regarding the photos below. I could not find a spot in the museum where I could take an unobstructed photo of the entire ship. So my photos just shows parts of the ship.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the third floor and on the other side (my photo).

A photo of the Vasa ship from the second floor and more from the front. I was walking around the ship and taking photos.

A photo of the Vasa ship from the back. They removed all the ornaments and placed them separately. This was not always the case. This is my photo.

This is just picture hanging in the museum. It shows how the back of the ship once looked like.

A model of the ship showing how it once looked like. This model is part of the museum exhibit (my photo).

An older photo of the Vasa ship (not mine). It is taken from the side so you can see the whole ship.

It should be noted that the conservators learned some lessons as they tried to conserve the ship. They pioneered many new methods and succeeded in solving many difficult problems. However, they found that using the conserving agent PEG was not a good idea. The iron originally concentrated in specific areas in the wood was spread over the entire ship. The consequences of this became apparent decades later.

Other things they found when they salvaged the ship were the anchors and skeletons.

Once when we visited the Vasa Museum, I bought a children’s book that they sold at the museum called The Vasa Piglet. The story was about a pig who was brought onto the ship to be slaughtered and eaten. However, the ship tipped and sank but the pig saved itself by climbing the mast, sitting in the mast platform for a while before swimming to shore. The piglet survived, and no one ever tried to eat him again. Therefore, he lived happily ever after, but no one else did. It seemed like a cute story to me, but my daughter claims she was traumatized by this book. She was fearful of boats for several years afterwards.