The Famous Borg Statue

This heroic statue of Swedish national hero Bjorn Borg was created 137 years before he was born.  He’s depicted here at the precise moment he won his first Grand Slam in 1974.

When the statue was originally unveiled, Borg was holding a bronze tennis racquet in his right hand.  However only three months after the unveiling, the racquet was stolen by vandals.  They were not particularly intelligent vandals, and they were caught when they attempted to unload the racquet on eBay.

The two thieves were sentenced to fourteen months of the dreaded ABBADABBA, the harshest punishment the Swedish constitution allows.  ABBADABBA consists of house arrest in very comfortable conditions in a secured apartment that has speakers in every room blasting ABBA’s greatest hits twenty-four hours a day.  After the 1, 539^th time of hearing “Money, Money, Money, ” the prisoners officially requested death by lethal injection.

Vasa Museet

This place is an absolute must-see if you’re in Stockholm.  It’s the home of perhaps the worst warship ever built.  Seriously.  The Spruce Goose was a better airplane than the Vasa was warship.

I don’t know how the German ship designer Henrik Hybertsson, or “Master Henrik” got the commission, because based on what happened to the Vasa, he didn’t know shit about designing sailing ships.  Even a moron landlubber like me knows that a ship has to have enough ballast below the waterline to balance the weight above the waterline.  But this clown apparently didn’t know that.

The ship was commissioned by King of Sweden Gustavus Adolphus, and in terms of looks at least, he got his money’s worth. The ship was spectacularly beautiful and decorated within an inch of its life.

With much pomp and celebration, the Vasa began its maiden voyage on August 10, 1628.  Since it was simply repositioning to a different spot in the harbor, it didn’t have its full complement of sailors aboard.  In fact, there were women and children on the vessel, also, as this was just a ceremonial portion of the ship’s journey.

At least it was supposed to be.  The ship hadn’t gone a thousand meters before it tipped over and sank to the bottom of the harbor.  As many as fifty people drowned.

It’s a pity that Master Henrik died before the Vasa launched.  He should have lived to suffer the consequences of designing such a lethally incompetent ship.

The cannons were salvaged fairly quickly, but after that, even though the ship was just there, ninety feet below the surface, right there in Stockholm harbor, the ship was lost.  It took modern technology to catch up in order for it to be found again, and that didn’t happen until 1959.  One of the many incredibly important things that happened that year.

This began a decades-long saga of recovery.  The ship was finally hoisted to the surface in 1961.  It looked pretty good for having been underwater for 333 years, but it needed lots of work.

Two factors helped the Vasa do so well at the bottom of the harbor.  First, the Baltic waters were too cold for shipworms, which are the usual culprits for disappearing sunken wooden ships.  Second, until recent years, the waters of the Baltic were VERY polluted, and this toxic brew kept away any other microorganisms that might have nibbled on the hull.  (The waters around Stockholm are now remarkably clean.)

The most important consideration was keeping the wood of the ship from drying out. To keep this from happening, the timbers of the ship were misted with  polyethylene glycol (PEG) for seventeen years.  These conservation experts were not kidding around.

Eventually, this stunning museum was built to house the Vasa . The museum opened in 1990 and is the most visited museum in Scandinavia.  The Vasa itself is the largest restored object in history, and the work on it is ongoing.