17th century sister vessel to Vasa warship discovered

Archaeologists found the wreck of ship Applet, sister ship of the 17th-century Vasa warship, which sank on its maiden voyage, the Swedish Museum of Wrecks said on Monday. Marine archaeologists from the museum discovered a huge shipwreck in December 2021 near Vaxholm, an island outside Stockholm. 'Our pulses spiked when we saw how similar the wreck was to Vasa,' Jim Hansson, one of the archaeologists. ' Both the construction and the powerful dimensions seemed very familiar. The hope of finding one of Vasa's sister ships was sparked within us,' Hansson added. 'The dimensions, construction details, wood samples and archival material all pointed in the same direction-amazingly, we had found Vasa's sister ship Applet,' Patrik Hoglund, another maritime archaeologist at the museum, said. This will help to understand how the large warships evolved, from the unstable Vasa to seaworthy behemoths that could control the Baltic Sea, Hoglund stressed. The Vasa ship was built in 1628 and the Applet ship in 1629 by Margareta Nilsdotter, who is considered one of Sweden's first female engineers. The Vasa ship, which sank on its maiden voyage off Vaxholm Island near Stockholm in 1629, was taken out of the sea in 1961 and begun to display at the Vasa Museum. The ship Applet, which started to be used in 1630, was sunk by the Swedish Navy on Vaxholm Island in 1658 due to its obsolescence.

17th century sister vessel to Vasa warship discovered

"The dimensions, construction details, wood samples and archival material all pointed in the same direction-amazingly, we had found Vasa's sister ship Applet," Patrik Hoglund, another maritime archaeologist at the museum, said.