Scale: 1cm = 48.5cm
Vasa was rediscovered in 1956 by private researcher Anders Franzén, using a simple grapnel hook towed behind a boat. He’d been trolling Stockholm harbour for three years looking for it. Whenever he snagged something, he’d lower a special device to take a sample. When he finally pulled up some old black oak, he persuaded the navy to send a dive team to investigate; Vasa was found.
Instead of investigating the vessel under water, the entire ship was lifted to the surface and salvaged. Navy divers spent two years digging six tunnels under the ship and pulling massive steel cables through them to suspend the hull in a basket. The cables were taken to two floating pontoons and gradually Vasa was freed from the mud, lifted and moved into shallower water. It was so well preserved that once the gun ports were sealed, and thousands of tonnes water pumped out, the hull actually floated – so, 333 years since its first fateful voyage, Vasa ‘sailed’ again.
Builder’s notes
Designed by: Greg Koutoumis and Will Durkatz
Built By: Greg Koutoumis, Darren Ballingall and Jordan Hocking
To make the six cables used to raise Vasa we used 1x2 rounded plates chained together, this allowed us to ‘bend’ the cables into the position we wanted and appear as if the cables were going deep under the water.
A key detail was that only the top row of gunports would be visible, indicating the ship was still in the process of being lifted, as the second row of gunports would still be submerged. For the boarded-up gunports, we used Medium Nougat pieces that have a wooden board effect which was perfect!
A fun part to build was the inside of Vasa’s hull. The ship’s ‘healthy’ condition was in part due to the raw sewage pumped into the area, we thought it would be funny to include special LEGO® poop elements!
A fun Minifigure detail is Anders Franzén who was the ‘super fanboy’ who was dedicated to finding Vasa and actually recovered the first piece of wood from the ship!
Model facts
- This model took 130 hours to make
- It uses 5,559 bricks
- It weighs 25 kilograms