Vasa (Wasa) 87cm

The Vasa, celebrated as the largest and most magnificent vessel of the Swedish navy, was designed to embody Sweden’s imperial pride and expansionist ambitions under King Gustavus Adolphus. Constructed according to the king’s personal specifications, it stood as the grandest warship in his fleet.

Symbolising both power and opulence, the Vasa was intended to play a key role in the Thirty Years’ War, demonstrating Sweden’s naval dominance. This Wasa model ship is an exquisite replica of one of the most impressive ships of the early 1600s. With its exceptional craftsmanship, this replica can serve as a stunning centerpiece in your office, home, or meeting room. You can also acquire display cabinets, making it easy to showcase this ship in all its grandeur.

Key Features of the wooden Vasa ship models:

• Dimensions: 87cmL x 20cmW x 78cmH.
• Highly impressive, historically accurate, 1:96 scale model of the Wasa.
• Impressive replica, making this one of our most commonly purchased wooden model ships.
• Entirely built by hand, with every piece of wood and metal used made from scratch.
• All cannons, muskets, anchors, fixtures, chains, ladders etc. made from appropriate material.
• No plastic used – this Wasa model ship only uses materials suitable for the real thing.
• Handcrafted and according to scale following official plans to help balance everything out.
• Comes with a solid wooden base that also has a name plate attached for easy identification.
• Laminated sheet provided that gives you details about your Wasa model ship for display.

The model is also available at smaller size 45cm.

The History of the Vasa (Wasa)

When looking at ships of this era, the ships that are often best remembered are those of incredible achievements. However, when the Swedish maritime services built the Vasa for Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in the 1620s, it was supposed to be a gift of eloquence. However, the ship – though immensely beautiful – was a crushing failure. The ship came to be from 1626 to 1628, taking a huge amount of time, resources and manpower to piece together. Embarrassingly, it sunk a mere mile into the maiden voyage of the ship. The warship herself never became anything else other than a fine metaphor for failure. The ship was initially attempted to be recovered, though this was never possible.

It lay dormant until the 1950s, when a largely intact hull was finally pulled out from the sea. This took place eventually in 1961, and was housed in a museum custom-built for it alone Eventually, it was moved to Stockholm, where it joined the Vasa Museum stock. Today it attracts tens of millions of visitors. The fact it was so strong and powerful was part of the problem; all it took was a mild breeze to blow the whole thing horribly off course. Even in port, though, its instability was easily noticed. The King of the era, though, lacked the patience to wait for this to be solved – the maiden voyage was supposed to join up with the ships taking part in the Thirty Years’ War. The fact that nobody was found to be at fault for the failed ship probably tells its own story. Even after so long underwater, many of the items onboard were found intact and helped really paint the picture of 17^th-century naval warfare. At the very least, it let us see that, if nothing else, the Vasa was indeed as opulent as it was proclaimed!