You folks that do ships may have seen this. I just stumbled on it and was amazed at my introduction to the massive number of hand carved figures this thing had. I can’t imagine the man hours to build this ship.
https://www.ipms.nl/walkarounds/walkaround-schepen/1965-walkaround-wasa
Well, Wasa was meant to be the King’s flagship and host only the highest ranking types aboard, and the decor was meant to be suitable to the “station” of those nobles and aristocrats.
Ship building back i nthe day was manpower intensive, but manpower was plentiful. Master had journeymen and Apprentices. You could hire up a couple hundred guys to do all your carved and gilded works.
You would use between 8 and 10 guys just to build a single frame, and you wanted three frames building once the keel was laid.
While all these guys are busy, there are people going over all the wough sawn lumber for the hull, decks and the like, and the spars were being roughed out. (If memory serves Wasa’s mainmast was made up from either 9 or 11 pieces and bound to create the spar that would then be fit with cheeks, top, etc.)
Or imagine a gothic cathedral.
Your shipyard would have shops for everything right there on the lot. Even a blacksmith to make tools. And not least of all the rope walks. Those were massive.
I saw Wasa back in the mid 70’s. At that time she was under pipe scaffolding in a big shed with a constant deluge of preservative. You wore boots, an oilskin raincoat and a Sou’wester to go in. A wonder I had normal kids.
Thanks for sharing.
After the Constitution, this is one ship I would have loved to see. I have seen the whaler Charles W. Morgan with her sides painted to make her look like a warchip un at Mystic, but that is no comparison to Wasa. I have a old book that showed when they were clening out one of the gun decks. They were still carrying red paint on the decks and were finding skeletons trapped under the guns.
I love the Wasa. I built the Airfix kit some years ago and fell in love with it as I did my research on how to ships stern with all the detail and guilding. The manpower to build this must have been impressive. I’m a project manager when I kickoff a new project I like to introduce Scope Creep and I have shown this youtube clip about the dangers of scope creep and how it lead to the sinking of Wasa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmJ59yyYza4&t=51s
But as a side note. if you want to see the amount of effort and manpower that went into building and salvaging this ship check the link below. There’s 512 photos from the Vasamuseet. which is on my bucketlist of places to visit.
That is really good! Even with an unlimited budget!
Kind of makes one think of Hitler’s aircraft carriers.
Yeah, but think Bill;
There isn’t any nice woodwork to even compare to it today! Wood carving has met the motorized age. There are carvers, but, because of folk’s indifference they almost cannot get paid for the time, much less the skill!
This is something I know from experience. When I step away from plastic occassionally, I carve Fish ( Lifelike) and Hummingbirds( Lifesize) and it takes about 60 hours for a simple Fish, about 80 for a Hummingbird. Then factor in the cost of the Walnut or Oak or other woods used. Then at a Juried Show( where you can sell your work) someone Balks at Forty Five Bucks for a fish.They think they should get it for Five bucks.
Imagine what it took for one of those Lions back then!