Evolution of The Ship Excursion - Part I
by Don Dressel
They say that opportunity knocks but once, and when the Maritime
Museum of San Diego came up with the trip package to Northern Europe
and Scandinavia entitled Evolution of the ship, I could not miss the
opportunity. The main theme was SHIPS! It was an eighteen day trip,
beginning on May 14th and ending on May 31st, and met all the
expectations I had hoped for and more.
Following the long flight to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, an
enjoyable tour of the city was conducted
with
the rest of the day at leisure to enjoy the city and its many
attractions. As part of this tour, we made a stop at a location
where they were in the process of building a sailing ship along with
seeing some fine samples of the types of ships used by the people of
Stockholm. The picture at the left is my lovely wife with Stockholm
in the background. Just to the right of this picture was where the
VASA sank. The next day a coach took the group from our hotel to the
VASA museum, where we spent the entire morning admiring the ship,
taking a special tour of the ship, and seeing all the exhibits. They
also had an excellent museum store. The pictures below are taken by
a professional with excellent lighting. When you go to the VASA
Museum it is much darker and pictures taken come out very dark if at
all. The ships boat shown alongside the VASA in the picture is also
unique showing the type of ships boat built at that time. The
picture to the left shows the stern, but
these
pictures do not really show the awesome size and grandeur of the
ship – it has to be seen in person to appreciate the magnitude of
the ship herself. This experience was worth the entire trip –
everything else was gravy, as far as I was concerned. There were
also a number of reproductions of the VASA and how she was painted.
One of the items they discovered was that the ship was painted red
on the outside bulkheads and the stern, as well as the bow, not
blue. Also, all the figures were painted, not gilded. There are some
excellent examples of the figures as painted on the original ship.
There are samples of
many of the artifacts recovered from the wreck indicating the life
style of the people who occupied the ship for such a short time.
They discovered that one of the things they did to restore the ship
turned out to be a major mistake. They replaced the missing iron
rods and bolts with new iron rods and bolts. As it turned out, these
iron items were slowly dissolving and creating sulfuric acid, so all
the iron bolts in the ship now have to be replaced with cobalt rods
– a slow process due to the expense.
The VASA Museum store had a lot of good books on the VASA as well as
a great set of plans, but I had to ask for the plans, as they were
not on display. A DVD was purchased telling the story of the VASA,
which will be shown at one of the upcoming club meetings.
Surprisingly, there were no wooden ship kits of the VASA for sail at
the museum store, although both Billings and Corel make VASA model
kits (in wood).
When viewing the ship, there were four or five levels or tiers to go
to, so that you could view the ship from the keel up to the top deck
and get a close view of the entire ship. They also had a number of
good models of the VASA on display. This will be continued
next month with the departure from Stockholm and the trip to
Oslo, Norway for the next leg of the adventure. It is the oldest of
the Scandinavian capital cities and one of the largest
cities in Europe. This is where we had the opportunity to
check out several of the recovered Viking ships. The train
ride from Stockholm to Oslo was over the mountain overnight in
first-class couchette accommodations. This was another experience
for me – the first time I had slept on a train overnight.
--To be Continued