Vasa Museum

The Vasa Museum in Stockholm may not be the one of Wonders of the World, but it's close. The Vasa is a really big and fancy 17th century warship. Also a kind of a monument to military poor planning and over-reach, and to everybody's reluctance to tell a King that he's a bit nuts. But on the positive side, just imagine... an entire seventeenth century warship, preserved exactly as it was the day it launched!

Vasa... as the King hoped she would be

On 10 August 1628, Wasa set sail on her short maiden voyage, promptly sinking in Stockholm harbor. As I understand it, the ship was a little too tall and top-heavy, as the King had insisted on her having a full extra deck of cannons.  And too skinny to hold enough ballast to compensate for the high center of gravity.  So she slid down the launching ways into the water, tipped over, and sank.

Vasa's captain

Only ~30 people died. The rest just swam to the nearby shore. The museum included the skeletal remains and some interesting analysis of the probable lives and occupations of the lost. The captain was one of the them. I think he chose to go down with the ship, rather than having to explain the situation to the King.

Hard-hat salvage diver

Fast forward 333 years to 1961. Vasa was salvaged intact, and raised from the harbor floor by hard-hat divers passing steel cables under her keel, then stretching the  cables tight using salvage ships. She was reconstructed, replacing the rusted away iron bits, and is an astonishing 98% original. Vasa is now suspended in mid-air, and viewable from nearly touching distance.

Viewing her is very close to time-travel.

Scale model reproduction

Vasa herself!

Vasa