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The 'Vasa' |
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What happened to the 'Vasa' almost immediately after she was launched? |
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From the seventeenth-century empire of Sweden, |
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the story of a galleon that sank at the start of her maiden voyage in 1628 |
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must be one of the strangest tales of the sea. |
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For nearly three and a half centuries she lay at the bottom of Stockholm harbour |
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until her discovery in 1956. |
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This was the Vasa, royal flagship of the great imperial fleet. |
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King Gustavus Adolphus 'The Northern Hurricane', |
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then at the height of his military success in the 'Thirty Years' War, |
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had dictated her measurements and armament. |
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Triple gun-decks mounted sixty-four bronze cannon. |
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She was intended to play a leading role in the growing might of Sweden. |
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As she was prepared for her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, |
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Stockholm was in a ferment. |
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From the Skeppsbron and surrounding islands |
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the people watched this thing of beauty |
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begin to spread her sails and catch the wind. |
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They had laboured for three years to produce this floating work of art; |
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she was more richly carved and ornamented than any previous ship. |
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The high stern castle was a riot of carved gods, demons, knights, kings, warriors, |
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mermaids, cherubs; and zoomorphic animal shapes ablaze with red and gold and blue, |
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symbols of courage, power, and cruelty, |
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were portrayed to stir the imaginations of the superstitious sailors of the day. |
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Then the cannons of the anchored warships thundered a salute to which the Vasa fired in reply. |
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As she emerged from her drifting cloud of gun smoke |
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with the water churned to foam beneath her bow, |
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her flags flying, pennants waving, sails filling in the breeze, |
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and the red and gold or her superstructure ablaze with colour, |
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she presented a more majestic spectacle than Stockholmers had ever seen before. |
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All gun-ports were open and the muzzles peeped wickedly from them. |
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As the wind freshened there came a sudden squall and the ship made a strange movement, listing to port. |
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The Ordnance officer ordered all the port cannon to be heaved to starboard |
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to counteract the list but the steepening angle of the decksincreased. |
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Then the sound of rumbling thunder reached the watchers on the shore, |
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as cargo, ballast, ammunition and 400 people |
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went sliding and crashing down to the port side of the steeply listing ship. |
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The lower gun-ports were now below water and the inrush sealed the ship's fate. |
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In that first glorious hour, the mighty Vasa, which was intended to rule the Baltic, |
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sank with all flags flying--in the harbour of her birth. |