MarkdV
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raboof wrote:
Great images. Looks like we're on a 50mm 1.2 marathon
Well then I will start with the images from the 50mm in Sweden.
The first is looking towards the old town on the Island of Gamla stan. i think the spire is that of the German Church but I don't know the story behind why there is a German church there, although Sweden from the time of Gustavus Adolphus in the 17th Century Sweden was Protestant like parts of Germany.
Gustavus Adolphus was a busy man, firstly over-throwing his cousin then waging a war with him over control of Poland, and hence most of the Baltic coast. Also he was busy watching over his shoulder at the Catholic invasion of Jutland and a rick of Catholic control over Copenhagen and Zealand which would have bottled Sweden up inside the Baltic Sea and denied them a route to the North Sea. So he decided to strengthen his Navy with the building of 4 large warships, the first of which was the Vasa.
The Vasa was Sweden's first attempt at a 2 gun-deck ship and also the world's first ship with guns all of the same caliber (other countries had guns on the upper deck which were smaller than the lower) as an attempt to help make it easier to keep stocked with cannon balls, as previously each gun was a unique piece with a different sized shot, you can imagine what that would have been like logistically. However this meant that the ship was top heavy and too narrow and on it's maiden voyage it was caught by a gust of wind, heeled over and water started coming in the open gun ports and she sank within 20 minutes with the lost of about 30 hands. All within the first nautical mile.
Amazingly with technology of the time they managed to salvage the cannons from the wreck, but the ship itself was left until the 1960's where it was raised, preserved and is now on display at the Vasamuseet on the island of Djurgården.
The actual story of the loss is one of human failure after human failure. Everyone knew the vessel was too unstable to sail, but no-one dared tell the king that the warship that was to be the pride of his fleet couldn't sail when he wanted it to, so...disaster ensured. In the best tradition the ensuing board of enquiry found no-one responsible.
The other ships in the Vasa's class were build 1.5m wider and were very successful for 30 years until they were outstripped by technology.
The Vasa sailed past the waterfront of the island of Gamla stan and thousands of watching citizens, where today tens of thousands of people walk and stop to feed the gulls, not thinking of the events that had unfolded there 384 years before.
The old German church
The Vasa with open gun ports. Should have left them closed...
The view from Djurgården
384 years later, gulls catch food thrown to them.
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