Dan Snow's History Hit - Sunken Swedish Warship Discovered!

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

In December 2021, marine archaeologists working alongside the Swedish Navy came across the wreck of a 17th-century warship in the Stockholm archipelago. Its identity remained a mystery until earlier this year when she was positively identified as the elusive 'Äpplet', sister ship to the ill-fated 'Vasa' that sank during her maiden voyage. Marine archaeologist Jim Hansson joins us to explain the significance of this wreck as an example of the cutting-edge engineering and experimentation that defined this period of naval history.This episode was produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe to History Hit today!Download History Hit app from the Google Play store.Download History Hit app from the Apple Store.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. I've got breaking shipwreck news for you. Breaking news alert, folks. It's a good one. In 1629, Sweden launched a mighty warship, the Apple. Not the best name in the world. It was commissioned by the great warrior king, Gustavus Adolphus. He wanted to dominate the Baltic, dominate the maritime space, and then project Swedish power onto the European mainland. He wanted to carve out an empire in Germany. He did pretty well. The apple was part of his plan, as was its sister ship, the Vasa. You may have heard of the Vasa, a huge ship that sank within a few meters after just a few seconds of her maiden voyage. So some changes were made to the apple, as you'll hear. She then

served for the rest of the Thirty Years' War. She stayed afloat, which was good. But in 1658, decades later, she was deliberately sunk by the Swedes to block one of the many entrances to Stockholm harbour as a block ship, a common fate for many old warships around the world. And that's where she has lain for 350 years until now. Actually, she still lies there. So including now. It was discovered in 2021 by the Museum of Wrecks in Stockholm, WRAC. Go and check out their website. And the Swedish Navy. But it's only just been positively identified as the Apple. We are joined on this podcast by Jim Hansen. He's a marine archaeologist at the Swedish National Maritime and Transport Museum. And one of the people who's been able to get right up close to the wreck, swimming through the gundecks in the murky deep,

I ask him all about it. He tells what condition it's in. Spoiler, very good condition. You've got to go to Stockholm, folks. You're never going to go anywhere in the world with better shipwrecks. Just a simple fact. Jim tells us all about the ship, the dive, the discovery, but also about the ship's purpose and what we can learn from her

about shipbuilding in the 17th century in the Baltic. You're going to love it. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off. And liftoff.

And the shuttle has cleared the tower. Jim, thanks for coming on the podcast and big congratulations. Thanks a lot. When did you make this discovery and whereabouts is it? It's just outside Stockholm, Stockholm City. So it's not very far from where the vasa museum is so it could be 10 kilometers or something listen jim what's going on what's going on with the outer edge of stockholm harbor it seems like a graveyard for ships you guys there's some nifty navigation

there is that yeah actually there is a horrible uh archipelago to navigate in it's 24 000 islands and small scaries it's really difficult but in this case there's a defense out there so swedish navy has used their old warships when they are finished in the swedish navy they have no meaning to repair them anymore they've used them as ship barriers or fillings in the old city in stockholm or in kaskrona examples of the same procedure and even in Sveaborg in Finland. Yeah, sinking old vessels was a common way of kind of blocking up access to the port, wasn't it, against enemy forces? Yeah, at this place outside a small village in the archipelago called Vaxholm, we have found letters from 1548 that they already, at that time,

they moved out the old defense from Stockholm, the Stockholm Walls. The medieval walls didn't last against big ships with big guns anymore in the early 1600th century. So they moved out the defense and used Baxholm as the main lock to Stockholm, to protect Stockholm. So there's several sounds out there, which sank ships and built stone coffins and put lots of stones and then they built a fortress so the old traffic or an eventual attack had to pass the fortress so that's why the Vaxholm fortress is it the big 19th century fortress that you can still go and visit today yeah and it started to build at the end of the 1550s yeah I've been to the Vaxholm fortress it's very cool even to this day yeah. So the Apple is part of this

centuries-old process of fortifying, well, protecting Stockholm, is it? Yeah, exactly. So these ships are quite cool. They defend Sweden on the sea, and then after their career, they defend Sweden, in this case Stockholm, at the seabed. So it's quite cool. and Sweden, in this case Stockholm, at the seabed. So it's quite cool. It's second history. And so the apple was sunk deliberately after the Thirty Years' War, after Sweden's triumph in the Thirty Years' War. Yeah, and it was sunk in 1659.

And at that time we were in war with the Netherlands and Denmark, and Poland threatened to attack Sweden as well. So we were in a difficult time at that time. So it's exactly what's happening today when it starts to be threatening in the Baltic. And what are we doing then? We're improving our army and navy and so on. It's exactly the same in 1659. They tried to reforce the strength of the fortress around Vaxholm

and all these sounds with old ships. So 30 years during the 30 years war in the Navy. It was then sunk. Did you know where it was? Were you looking for it in particular? Yeah, we are working now with one of the biggest maritime archaeology projects we have ever had called the Forgotten Fleet, where we started the Swedish Navy during a 500-year period,

the modern Swedish Navy. And we are looking for ships that we know exist somewhere, or probably know. The Navy seems to have used their old ships mostly, so they're existing somewhere. And in the archives, you can find that some ships have been sunk in some of the sounds nearby Vaxholm or in Karlskrona or whatever. So we tried to search for these kind of wrecks and the Apple was obviously one of the biggest names you would like to find.

And the Apple was a big name because of its service when it was one of the king's battleships, was it? Yeah, and also because we have opened a new museum, a maritime archaeology museum, which is called the Museum of Wrecks. And we are working together close to the Vasa museum, which is included in our governmental museums, we are fine museums. We would like to contribute to Vasa, which is a fantastic museum.

So with all the finds we do as maritime archaeology, we would like to bring in new histories and maybe shed some new light on, for example, Vasa. So the App apple is a perfect match in this case. So now we can study Vasa in another way, and then we can also look what actually happened to the apple when they changed the dimensions. Now, the Vasa is the greatest shipwreck in the world and one of the best museums I've ever been to.

Is the apple in similar condition to the Vasa? Almost, I would say. In the bow, there's quite a lot of stones 10 metres from the stem, which came there in the 1820s, 1830s. But the rest of the hull is really intact. So you can, when you're diving, you're swimming inside and on top of the first gun deck. So the hull is sticking up about

i don't know six seven eight meters but then as further to the stern you come you will see a big part of the hull has just fallen out a bit and its piece is about 20 times 10 meters so when you swim up on the inside on the starboard side you can actually see and look through intact gun ports on the second gun deck. So it's really cool. Hold on, Jim, you are blowing my tiny mind. You have swum inside this 17th century warships enclosed gun deck. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah, it was really cool. How deep is it? And can I come with you next time? Yeah, it's quite deep, but it's in a sensitive area, so we can't say exact position, exact depth due to the Navy. So it's quite deep. My goodness gracious me. And what is it about the Baltic that means these 450-year-old shipwrecks are in good condition? The Baltic is quite a small ocean,

and there's a narrow passage through the sound between Denmark and Sweden, which means that there's no salt water comes into the Baltic almost. So there's very low salinity, it's brackish water, there's low oxygen in the water, which means horticultural heritage is a perfect way to protect all the shipwrecks. And that also means that there's no shipworm in here. So the shipworm eats all the wood from the seabed up to the very top of the shipwrecks and that also means that there's no shipworm in here so the shipworm eats all the wood from the seabed up to the very top of the ship so if Vasa had sunk outside Gothenburg for example it would have been nothing left besides the bottom frames and the ballast so

it's like a I don't know a mecca for a maritime archaeologist we have had lots of common research projects with colleagues from South Hampton, by the way, so many people come here and do service because it's such a good way to look at the shipwreck. You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit, talking about a new shipwreck found in the Baltic, more coming up. On Gone Medieval, History Hits Medieval podcast. We're here to spoil you with the big topics. Possibly one of the most important Anglo-Saxon discoveries

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who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. Well, Southampton, obviously, one of the world's great maritime archaeology centres of excellence. So apply there, kids. Go and learn your trade there.

What can this vessel, apart from being incredibly cool and exciting us and firing our passion for naval history and archaeology, what are we learning from this ship? I love the 18th century, but the 17th is this essential bridge between these smaller vessels that we associate with Drake in the 16th century, these raiding ships and these really big battleships, these floating gun platforms that you get by the 18th century. What has the Apple taught you about how technology is changing in the 17th? We are in the middle of the survey or excavation in this project,

but this wreck, it's a perfect wreck to show how they tried to build these big gun platforms at a time when they didn't really know how to do it. So the Swedish king, Gustav Adolf II, ordered these four big ships, which Vasa is the first, Eple is the second, the Crown is the third, and Scepter is the fourth. And these four ships, he tried to have as much gun power as possible on one ship, but at the same time, they didn't know how to make it stable, because the Swedish king wanted 24 pounders on the lower gun deck but even on the upper gun deck which haven't been tried before. So that's made the whole structure and hull really unstable. So we can see in the archives that the

admirals arguing a bit with the ship builders because they want as much gun power as possible. They don't want to have the gun ports too high from the sea level because then the ship will be instable and they don't want to have that they will be too low because if it's a little bit windy they can't open the gun ports. So the shipbuilders was in a really annoying situation to please the king, to please the admirals, to make a stable ship, but they didn't really know how to do it. So Eplet can tell us a lot of how they changed the dimension, the constructions, and so on. So we can look at Vasa, which was obviously really bad, in another way.

So it's really one of the best finds to learn about the shipbuilding at this time, I would say. So what you're looking at is the attempts to improve on the Vasa's design and right some of the wrongs that went into that catastrophe for the Swedish Navy. Is that right? Yeah. So we know that the shipbuilder called Hein Jacobson, a Dutch shipbuilder, he took over from Henrik Hyberson, who is also a Dutch shipbuilder, who took over from Henrik Hubertzong, who is also a Dutch shipbuilder, who died in the middle of the building of Vasa. He tried to widen Vasa even at that time.

He built the rest of the three ships. So when he put the keel actually beside Vasa for a while, Applet's keel, he widened Applet more than a meter before Vasa has launched into the sea. So he realized immediately that Vasa is not going to be good at all. So he tried to change a lot already on Epplet the first stage when they started to build it. We have seen some traces on his ship building and his solutions in the ship parts and construction details.

details which on Vasa they have some kind of riders inside which is a kind of fattox or beams which is holding up the pressure for the gun deck inside the inner planking so the hull wouldn't take too much pressure and that solution is made because they don't know how to make this stable ship so it's not going to be instable and then they also made a lower orlop deck, which they hadn't built before, which we can see on Vasa, which we also see in Eplet. So there's some kind of solutions they try. They try these solutions before they have launched the ship. So we see that they're trying and develop, and so it's a really fascinating time. And for people listening in the UK, all of this technology would have been spied on and expertise would have been convinced and paid to come across and start building the Navy of Samuel Pepys in the 17th century here in England and the UK as well. So this is a story around the whole Europe with all the 30th war and all the battles in the Baltics between the Danes, the Dutch and later on the Russians.

England and the French are really into the politics in the Baltic as well. So there's a mishmash of conflicts all the time during the 1700th century. And at that time, they tried to build these big fleets to control the Baltic. They have to match the other enemies' fleets. So this is constant developing. So it goes really fast, and they didn't really know how to do it, actually. But the Apple, it worked. The Vasa sank within, what, minutes of her maiden voyage beginning? 16 minutes. 16 minutes?

Yeah. I mean, crazy. And yet the Apple had a very successful life at sea. Were they successful? Not really, actually. The Apple became really a slow sailor. It seems that she's a little bit wider in the shape of the hull and also wider on the widest part, so a little bit technical here. But it seems like the hull of that is really clumsy. So it's really heavy to sail and it's really slow. So when it's launched, it's the biggest ship Sweden has built since 1580s. But the king, when he entered the 30s war in 1630, he doesn't choose Epplet.

He chooses an older ship, which is a little bit smaller. That's an indication that this ship wasn't probably so good. Is it fair to say they might have prioritized stability and safety in the aftermath of Vasa over, you know, sailing ability and speed? Yeah, it seems like she was really tricky to sail and was really slow. So she's more like a transport ship. She transported 900 soldiers in the 30s war there at that time. But then we know from the archives that the Navy tried to sell the Apple three times to France,

but they don't want to buy her. So it's not a really good ship. And we know that the third one, the Crown. Yeah, what happened to the Crown then? There is actually one painting from William van der Velde from the Battle of the Sound where you can see the transom of Kronan. And we can see there it's probably lower than Vasa. So they have tried to develop and try to make these ships a little bit more stable

by lowering the stern castle. And we also know by the archives, if you look at the guns, that they don't have these heavy guns on the upper gun deck at that time. So they tried to develop and tried to figure out how it's going to work. So Krona becomes quite good. And Scepter, the fourth one, becomes really good. But then the dimension seems to be exactly the same as Vasa. So something has happened there.

Lower Sternkastel, lighter guns, maybe lighter constructions, we think, also higher up in the hull, which we have really massive construction details very high up in both Vasa and Eflat. But these two ships are supposed to have ended up after a career somewhere in Vaxholm as well. Just finish the story of the Cronon, because the captain shouted, let's take in sail in case we suffer the same fate as the Vasa.

And then what happened, Jim? That's actually the wrong Kronan. Okay, interesting. So, sorry, there's two Kronans. Okay. It's actually, this is crazy. The Swedish Navy has reused, there's four ships called Appel in the 1700 century,

four ships called Kronan, the crown in the 1700 century. The Kronan you refer to is one of the biggest ships Sweden ever built that sank in an explosion in 1676. But that's the The Kronan you refer to is one of the biggest ships Sweden ever built that sank in an explosion in 1676. But that's the third Kronan and the Vasa sister ship named Kronan is the second one. Okay. So it's really tricky when you're going into the archives where they try to find out, oh, is that the Kronan I'm searching for or is that another one? So the Kronan I was

thinking of is the one that capsized and exploded. Has that been found as well? Yeah, yeah. And I think this is the world's longest maritime survey. It started in 1981 and it's still ongoing. So I've been diving there as well. So yeah, this is a fantastic place to dive on. Just brilliant. When you're diving on these trips, what is the visibility like? I'm talking as someone who lives near the coast of Southampton,

where on a good day, we have about a meter of visibility. Yeah, yeah. If you can see your feet, you're having a good time diving. Yeah. We were out diving yesterday, actually, south of the Stockholm Arkeplago on a smaller warship from 1660. That was 20 meters of visibility. It was really good.

But in the area of Vaxholm, where Appel is, it's three, four, five meters and pitch black. But it's quite okay. So it's much better than Southampton then. Having learned to dive where I live, at least everywhere you go in the whole world is a great treat. Everywhere is an improvement. And this is exciting. What is the plan? Would you raise it? I mean, it's very ambitious to raise it like the Vasa, but you've got this unbelievable collection of ships. What are you going to do with them all? That's the whole idea with the new museum, actually,

that we find new wrecks almost every year. And we can tell lots of really cool, interesting histories and so on. So we use new techniques like photogrammetry, using other techniques. So we can show the wreck site in a digital way, and you can use VR solutions and and so on and then keep the recs at the seabed we can do lots of service within the 3d model and the seabed we think we can have almost the same amount of materials with us to just work like that because a race applet is not even an option i don't think we we would have raised Vasa today when we know how much work and

effort and money it is in that. But actually, they're in fairly good areas for preservation. It's not like the Caribbean where the ships will just disappear in front of your eyes, right? So they will be there for years to come. Yeah, as it looks now. But due to the climate change, we really don't know. If the water level will increase, we will have a lot more salty water into the Baltic and maybe the shipw lot more salty water into the baltic and maybe the shipworm will penetrate further into the baltic and maybe it can reproduce there are lots of work on try to figure out in different ways how that could be in the future so as it is right now it's absolutely perfect but we don't know in the future actually So we'd like to find a plan to do a good documentation

with this kind of photogrammetry, which is really good. You have the whole wreck site. You can do lots of archaeological work in a computer and you can store it for the future. We will see what happens, actually. Jim, where can people engage with your extraordinary photogrammetry, scans, 3D rendering? Is there a website that people can go to?

Yeah, we have on Sketchfab, the Swedish National Maritime Museum, we have our own, where we put out our models of the shipwrecks. And we also have on the Museum of Wrecks, our website, lots of information about the shipwrecks, where you can see some of the 3Ds. And obviously at the museum, if you're here in Stockholm. Amazing. Thank you so much for

coming on the podcast Jim Henson thanks a lot really nice to be here Thank you.