Lessons from the Vasa Shipwreck | Hacker News Reader

Lessons from the Vasa Shipwreck

ft.com

33 pointsbookofjoe36 comments

The FT article is an extremely superficial description of the events, which does a disservice to the depth and span of archaeological research and discovery which has taken place since the Vasa's discovery.

If anyone's visiting Stockholm, the Vasa museum is well worth a visit.

For those further afield, the museum's website offers a wealth of details about its conception, history, discovery, and our contemporary understanding of the wreck.

Vasa Museum: https://www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/vasa-history/inquest

Agreed, not being a museum person at all I enjoyed a lot - also recommend fotografiska, insane collection!

That's what I tell anyone visiting Stockholm: if there is one museum to do, that's the Vasa. It's exceptional and super quick (you can literally get there, see a very old boat in an incredible state, and leave).

Finnish technology students played an elaborate prank when the ship was being lifted. Just before the event, a group dived down to the ship and planted a statue of Paavo Nurmi, also known as "The Flying Finn", on the deck. When the ship was finally lifted, the legendary Finnish runner was one of the first things they discovered. This played well with the friendly rivalry between the neighbours, though the Swedes did not appreciate it as much.

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa-jäynä

Fantastic! This was never part of the Swedish storytelling. Wonder why?

This word translated poorly, so the translation was a bit hard to read :)

https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%A4yn%C3%A4

Lessons from Vasa regarding C++ standardisation [pdf]: https://www.stroustrup.com/how-to-write-a-proposal.pdf

And Scott Myers talk:

"Why C++ Sails When the Vasa Sank"

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ltCgzYcpFUI

https://archive.ph/cac8I

Are your comments no longer pinned at the top? I was surprised to see this so far down. It was what I needed.

I find it ironic that the most prominent museum in Sweden is for a ship that only made it 3km before sinking.

While in Norway you can visit and walk aboard the "Fram". The most successful Arctic Exploration ship.

https://frammuseum.no/our-exhibitions/fram/

Vasa is a fair bit older, are there any other as well preserved from its time?

I would say it is about 4 times older and 1000 times less successful. A factor of 250 in favor of Fram.

Then again it's Norwegian so minus 1000.

There's not much older than the Vasa that is essentially intact. The Vasa is in good enough shape to have been recovered as a ship, and not as a shipwreck or an archaeological dig, which is pretty remarkable. I think there's one Ottoman galley a bit older that's been continuously maintained, and that's about it.

The reason it well preserved is the brackish water in Baltic Sea where the shipworm doesn't thrive.

The hard part(especially for large vehicles) is to survive that era past when it is valued as a working vehicle and before it is valued as a historical vehicle, At that point is is just junk. Large expensive junk.

I was recently reading about the original great Chicago wheel(The Ferris wheel). it lasted about 10 years, nobody wanted it. The contract said the fair land had to be restored to original form. So they just blew it up, nothing left, did not even try to save a car. The other disappointing part was that Ferris was a bit secretive and no technical drawings for it are known to exist. I really wanted to know how it was powered, more that the blurb you get in the articles. Best I found from the pictures is there are cast wide spaced(not gear spaced) drive slots riveted to the rim and vague mentions of a chain. Some sort of wide spaced bicycle type chain in partial engagement against the rim?

See also: The USS Enterprise(CV-6) if any ship deserved to be a museum ship that one did, but they were not able to muster the enthusiasm needed at the time she was broken up.

We have some viking ships that are older than the Vasa.

> a ship that only made it 3km before sinking.

Well that's precisely because it made it only 3km before sinking that we can see it.

You see from 3D-scan how tippy it is. Add guns on upper deck and it is dead https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/vasa-ship-137c0e1436e947e088...

The lesson was not to invade Poland and Lithuania but they didn't draw the conclusion.

"I just want a deluge. Just one little deluge. Is that too much to ask?"

Yes baby steal my windows, steal my colonnades, my manuscripts - steal them all.

It is an amazing museum. Highly encourage anyone passing through Stockholm to check it out.

The story of the Vasa is one of my favorites for lessons in building software or anything complicated. Though I'm not sure how much of the story is actually true, it's still a good fable if nothing else.

    "I'm not sure how much of the story is actually true"

The history and archaeology of the Vasa has been extensively studied by experts in their relevant fields – archaeology, history, dendrochronology, marine biology…

Some stories – like the one published here by FT – are overly simplistic. For a good, accurate, scientific history of the Vasa, the Vasa Museum's site is extremely detailed (and also separates supposition and apocryphal tales from established science).

Website of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm: https://www.vasamuseet.se/

Yeah I didn't mean the truth is unknown, just that the popular version of the story (major design changes mandated late in the build by an executive who didn't understand the consequences of what they were asking for) might not be exactly true, depending on who is telling the story.

The deeper issue was that no-one had the ability to push back on the king's demands. When the king rules by divine right, pushing back on the stakeholder is pushing back on God. Back in the day that was a great way to expedite the process of your head being separated from your torso.

That's a bit unfair, since one of the achievements of Gustavus Adolphus was establishing governing institutions and professional bureucracy.

The bigger issue with that plan was be that the king was off fighting a war in Poland.

I visited the museum two summers ago and it is really impressive. Even though I had caught some kind of cold and felt terrible, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit. Highly recommend.

I no longer have access, but this I remember being a good paper on the Vasa in the context of product design and project management https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=31396

I found this: https://www.scribd.com/doc/72476571/vasacasestudy

I found this: https://faculty.up.edu/lulay/failure/vasacasestudy.pdf . Fascinating failure

I feel like people use this "remember the Vasa" idea every 6 months.

Yes, we all remember the Vasa, and understand how it applies to any untested overengineered idea.

> Yes, we all remember the Vasa, and understand how it applies to any untested overengineered idea.

We clearly do not given that this story repeats over and over again.

Definitely go if you get a chance. It’s bigger than I expected and the building housing it is neat too

What percentage of folks in this thread saw the Vasa because of “Intro Days”?

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