Vasa II

Since everyone wants to know, I thought I would start a thread here for status updates on the Vasa rigging volume (Vasa II).

We are currently in negotiations with a publisher, and these are progressing pretty well. The format of this volume will not follow Vasa I exactly, as that proved to be cumbersome. Instead, it will probably be two books in a slipcase, along with separate large-format plans. This should make it much easier to use.

As it now stands, the chapter outline is as follows (chapter titles are descriptive working titles rather than final):

Editor: Fred Hocker
Lead authors: Olof Pipping, Fred Hocker
Lead illustrator: Lennarth Petersson
Contributing authors: Ole Magnus and Annette Seeberg, Paul Donohue, Louie Bartoš, Nathaniel Howe, Irene Lindblom, Eva Marie Stolt, Sven Bengtsson, Thomas Nilsson, Sharon Litcofsky, Lauren Morgens, Thomas Ward
Contributing illustrators: Susana Vallejos, Fred Hocker, Eva Marie Stolt, Jörgen Wallin, Jacob Jacobson
Photographs: Anneli Karlsson, Andrew Hanna, Dan Briggs
Translators: Angus Richardson, Fred Hocker


Publication outline

Dedication – to the memories of Sam Svensson (conservator at Statens Sjöhistoriska Museum in the 1950s and 1960s who initiated the detailed study of the rigging remains) and Ole Magnus (ropemaker who completed the study of the rope remains for this volume shortly before his death)

Contents

List of Illustrations and Illustration credits

List of Abbreviations

Foreword (Marika Hedin)

Acknowledgements

Preface – (Hocker, Peter Baeling, Seeberg/Pipping)
The preface provides an introduction to the Förstå Vasa publication program and this volume’s place in it, as well as capsule biographies of the contributors and the two people to whom the book is dedicated.

Explanations (Hocker)
Provides key administrative and background information to the conventions adopted in this series for ship names, spelling, dates, measurements, money and terminology. Many of these are specific to Sweden in the 1620s and thus not readily familiar to an international audience.

Chapter 1: Introduction – Seamanship and Vasa (Pipping, Hocker)
The introduction establishes how the rigging of ships developed in Europe up to the 17th century, what makes the Vasa collection unique and valuable, why this material should be studied in such detail and what the principle research questions to be answered are.

Part 1 – The archaeological evidence (Hocker)
The first part of the book presents and analyzes the find material from Vasa which is relevant to the understanding of how the ship was rigged and sailed. Chapters are organized by functional groups and vary in length, depending on the amount of find material. In each chapter, the relevant finds are described and illustrated in sufficient detail to allow useful conclusions to be drawn. Due to the number of finds and the fact that many of them were made on a production basis in specialized workshops, it is not necessary to present every object individually – readers are referred to the Vasa Museum’s online finds database for such information.
Chapter 2: Hull, including construction (Hocker)
This covers the fixed part of the rigging material which was part of the ship’s structure or fastened permanently to it:
1. Mast steps and partners
2. Chainwales
3. Bitts
4. Catheads and fish davit
5. Fixed sheaves in bulwarks, chesstree, etc.
6. Belaying devices (kevels, pinrails, etc.)
7. Ironwork
Chapter 3: Spars (Hocker, Nilsson)
Spars are the masts and yards, the wooden poles which carry the sails and allow them to be adjusted to meet the wind at an optimum angle and transfer the wind’s energy to the ship.
Chapter 4: Tops (Hocker)
Tops are the round platforms at the heads of the masts which provide working space for handling the rigging as well as sharpshooter positions in battle.
Chapter 5: Tackle (Howe, Lindblom, Hocker)
Tackle is all of the movable wooden and metal parts of the rigging which connect the sails to the spars and the hull and allow them to be raised, lowered and controlled
1. Deadeyes (Lindblom)
2. Blocks (Howe)
3. Parrels (Hocker)
4. Euphroes (Hocker)
5. Fairleads (Hocker)
6. Other (Hocker)
Chapter 6: Rope (Magnus, Seeberg, Hocker)
The rope represents one of the groundbreaking studies in this volume. It is a common find on archaeological sites but rarely presented or studied in detail, so this chapter receives special emphasis and extra material on the materials and manufacturing processes.
Chapter 7: Sails (Bartoš, Bengtsson)
The sails are the most unusual find among all of the artefacts found with Vasa, and so this chapter is also given extra weight.
Chapter 8: Capstans and windlass (Donohue)
Capstans are the human-powered machines mounted on the deck, which make it possible to lift the heavy weights of the anchors and sails.
Chapter 9: Steering (Hocker)
Vasa preserves the only known complete example of the whipstaff steering system, the most common form of steering gear on large ships from the late Middle Ages until about 1700.
Chapter 10: Anchors (Hocker, Ward)
Anchors are essential for operation of the ship, and all parts of the anchoring system survive, including anchors, stocks, buoys and cables.
Chapter 11: Navigation equipment (Hocker, Pipping)
The navigation equipment (compasses,timekeeping devices, sounding leads, etc.) is included in this volume as it is essential to sailing the ship.
Chapter 12: Reconstructing Vasa’s rig (Hocker, Pipping, Stolt)
This chapter synthesizes all of the archaeological evidence and comparative material in a reconstruction of the rigging of Vasa.

Part 2 – Rigging and Sailing Vasa (Pipping)
The second part takes the archaeological data as the departure point for a more wide-ranging contextual examination of the rigging and sailing of a large ship such as Vasa. Where the first part focused more on objects, this part focuses on process and meaning to explore the relevance of this find to larger questions of ergonomics and organisation, resource utilization, and operational implications.
Chapter 13: Ship performance and the sailing environment of the Baltic Sea
The geographic and climatological context is examined, as are the operational environment and the strategic limits within which the ship functioned. The essential parameters of the ship’s performance, such as speed, stability and weatherliness, are discussed in order to establish how well the ship was suited to its likely sailing routes and conditions.
Chapter 14: Money, materials and men (Hocker)
This chapter concentrates on the administrative framework for outfitting Swedish naval vessels and the resource base from which the raw material were drawn, as well as the organization of the processes of producing rigging and assembling it into a functioning rig. It addresses the economic, environmental and social factors influencing the production of sails, rope and tackle. It makes use of the historical documents relating to the operation of the Stockholm navy yard, where the ship was rigged and fitted out, as well as the remains of the ship itself.
Chapter 15: Rigging the ship
The process of rigging, starting with a bare hull and progressing to a fully outfitted ship ready to sail, is followed in detail, with attention on the manpower requirements, the organizational challenges, and the technical limitations imposed by the particular materials and methods used.
Chapter 16: Sailing the ship
The chapter opens with an analysis of crew organization and Vasa’s one, brief sailing passage for what they say about the ship’s performance and the level of competence of the crew. The rest of the chapter follows a typical passage across the Baltic, based on the sequence of sailing orders recorded for the Swedish navy in the 17th century. It presents the different maneuvers which the ship was expected to perform and how they should have been carried out. The ergonomic requirements are analyzed, and the ship is placed in the context of what is known about Baltic sailing in the 17th century.
Chapter 17: Sailing a modern reconstruction (Morgens and Litcofsky)
Trials made using the modern reconstruction Kalmar Nyckel both confirmed certain hypotheses about the how this rig functioned and raised new questions about the nature of the evidence used to study 17th-century seamanship. The relevance of Kalmar Nyckel for the study of how Vasa sailed is studied, as are the basic limitations of experimental archaeology.

Chapter 18: Conclusions (Pipping and Hocker)


Glossary (Hocker)

References

Index

Appendices:
1. Original documents relating to rigging (Hocker)
2. List of paintings used as references (Pipping)
3. Tables of proportions and dimensions (Pipping)
4. Index to Volume I