nautical.im
The nautical hub

Ships, boats and the people who sailed them.

nautical.im is a small hub for ships, boats, navigation and maritime history. Each subject gets its own hand-built site, where every fact links to its source and anything that is only our opinion is labelled as such. The first one is open now.

Open now: Vasa

Lost in 1628

Vasa, the Swedish royal warship, sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm on 10 August 1628, 1,300 metres from where she set off. [source]

Back in 1961

She came back to the surface on 24 April 1961, after 333 years under water, and more than 98 per cent of her original structure survives. [source]

Vasa from the side, simplified (bow on the left, not to scale)Ballast: about 120 tonnes of stone, low in the holdLower gunports:open when she sailedUpper gundeckLion figureheadCarved, painted sternMore than 50 m,keel to main mastheadLength: 69 m (Vasa Museum timeline) or 47 m (Vrak). Sources differ.Waterline
Vasa from the side: our own drawing, simplified and not to scale. The sourced figures behind it are on the Vasa story page.

What is nautical.im?

Ships and boats, how people found their way at sea, and the history of seafaring. Sea creatures and coastal forts are not covered here. Some true things to start with:

An island schooner

The Peggy was built for George Quayle of Castletown, Isle of Man; National Historic Ships UK calls her the world’s oldest surviving schooner. [source]

A king’s view

The Mary Rose was built in 1510 and sank in 1545. Henry VIII watched her sink from Southsea Castle. [source]

A prize for a clock

The Longitude Act of 1714 offered money for a way to find a ship’s precise longitude at sea. [source]

Iron and a propeller

When SS Great Britain was launched in 1843 she was the world’s largest passenger ship and one of the first iron, propeller-driven ocean liners. She carried over 33,000 people. [source]

Open the nautical file

Coming next

Six more nautical sites are planned. None is open yet, and the list may change as the research is done; each will be linked here on the day it goes live.

  • The Peggy of Castletownpeggy.nautical.im

    Planned: the Isle of Man boat found in a walled-up cellar in 1935, called the world’s oldest surviving schooner, and the puzzle of which of three Quayle boats she is.

    Planned
  • The Mary Rosemary-rose.nautical.im

    Planned: Henry VIII’s warship, lost in the Battle of the Solent in 1545 and raised in 1982, and how her conservation compares with Vasa’s.

    Planned
  • Viking shipsviking-ships.nautical.im

    Planned: the five Skuldelev ships sunk as a barrier in Roskilde Fjord, from an ocean-going trader to a great longship.

    Planned
  • Longitudelongitude.nautical.im

    Planned: how sailors found their position at sea, the 1714 Longitude Act and John Harrison’s sea clocks.

    Planned
  • SS Great Britainss-great-britain.nautical.im

    Planned: the iron, propeller-driven liner of 1843, in her day the world’s largest passenger ship.

    Planned
  • Lifeboatslifeboats.nautical.im

    Planned: the history of lifeboats and the RNLI, founded in 1824 on Sir William Hillary’s idea.

    Planned
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