By: Ginger Perales Posted date: February 04, 2017
Marine archaeologists have reportedly identified a shipwreck lying on the seabed off of the coast of the southern Swedish city of Karlskrona as the historic warship Blekinge. According to The Local, the ship is approximately 45 meters long and carried 68 or 70 cannon. Launched in 1682, it was the first ship ever built in Karlskrona, eventually ending up back where it started in 1713.
A curator with the Swedish National Maritime Museums, Jim Hansson, explained in the article that the warship may have been sunk deliberately in order to utilize its cannon to defend the city during the King’s campaign against Russia, a campaign which would eventually lead to the ruin of the Swedish Empire, causing Karl XII to flee to the Ottoman Empire.
The newly discovered ship is remarkably similar in size and age to the warship Vasa. The only ship from the seventeenth century to ever be salvaged practically fully intact, the 64-gun Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and was salvaged in the 1960s, is on display at the world-famous Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Opened in 1990, the Vasa Museum is reportedly Scandinavia’s most visited museum, with over 1.3 million visitors in 2016.
The Vasa foundered after sailing approximately 1,300 meters into her maiden voyage. Built on the orders of Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus at the naval yard in Stockholm, she was armed mainly with bronze cannon which were cast specifically for the ship. Richly decorated, after completion, the Vasa was among the most powerfully armed ships in the world. However, she was also dangerously top-heavy and unstable, and yet despite her lack of stability the ship was ordered to sea.
Full read http://www.newhistorian.com/vasa-like-warship-discovered-sweden/7974/
