400-year-old warships in Swedish channel may be sisters of doomed Vasa
The pair of warships were sunk to block enemy naval access to Stockholm.
The wrecks may be the remains of two of the four large warships Sweden's King Gustav II Adolf built in the 1620s and 1630s. The earliest of the four ships, Vasa, had a first trip out of port in 1628 that ended in disaster; the top-heavy vessel caught a gust of wind and leaned over far enough to let water rush in through open gun ports. King Gustav's prized warship sank just a few dozen meters offshore in front of hundreds of spectators, killing half the crew onboard.
On the other hand, the three later ships—Äpplet, Kronan, and Scepter—had longer careers. Äpplet sailed with the Swedish fleet to invade Germany in 1630, and Kronan and Scepter sailed against a combined Danish-Norwegian fleet in the 1644 battle of Kolberger Heide.
In the late 1600s, the Swedish navy scuttled the three aging warships to help control access to a narrow sea channel approaching Stockholm. A complex network of channels and straits weaves among the islands of western Sweden, but only two routes offer access to Stockholm by sea. The channel where the wrecked warships now lie is the larger of those two routes, and it's still in use today.
taken from this web-page
there you can find also a video of the diving - very interesting
but also another one here
The pair of warships were sunk to block enemy naval access to Stockholm.
The wrecks may be the remains of two of the four large warships Sweden's King Gustav II Adolf built in the 1620s and 1630s. The earliest of the four ships, Vasa, had a first trip out of port in 1628 that ended in disaster; the top-heavy vessel caught a gust of wind and leaned over far enough to let water rush in through open gun ports. King Gustav's prized warship sank just a few dozen meters offshore in front of hundreds of spectators, killing half the crew onboard.
On the other hand, the three later ships—Äpplet, Kronan, and Scepter—had longer careers. Äpplet sailed with the Swedish fleet to invade Germany in 1630, and Kronan and Scepter sailed against a combined Danish-Norwegian fleet in the 1644 battle of Kolberger Heide.
In the late 1600s, the Swedish navy scuttled the three aging warships to help control access to a narrow sea channel approaching Stockholm. A complex network of channels and straits weaves among the islands of western Sweden, but only two routes offer access to Stockholm by sea. The channel where the wrecked warships now lie is the larger of those two routes, and it's still in use today.
taken from this web-page
400-year-old warships in Swedish channel may be sisters of doomed Vasa
The pair of warships were sunk to block enemy naval access to Stockholm.
arstechnica.com
there you can find also a video of the diving - very interesting
but also another one here