Crown jewel(!) of Swedish military history, it's a total nonsense bragging construction gone tragically wrong. Our friendly neighborhood economist at the FT, Tim Harford, is trying to derive some meaning from it... dude probably went on a Stockholm vacation and visited the museum, thus no other material to write about.

Four hundred years ago, in a Stockholm shipyard, work began on Vasa, the pride of the Swedish navy. King Gustavus Adolphus was at war, and gave orders to his shipwrights to build something impressive.

None of this lasted for more than a few minutes. Vasa had drifted for about a mile when a gust of wind caught the ship from the side, pushing it into a pronounced lean — pronounced enough, in fact, that some of the gunports dipped below the waterline. The ship shuddered and then swiftly and inexorably sank to the bottom of the harbour, sailors desperately clinging to the masts as they protruded from the surface.

"Today, Vasa is the breathtaking centrepiece of one of Stockholm’s most popular museums.""Today, Vasa is the breathtaking centrepiece of one of Stockholm’s most popular museums."

Ah, here's an interesting little insight:

the engineer Henry Petroski, in his book Success Through Failure, describes the tendency of bridge engineers “overconfidently building increasingly longer bridges modelled on successful prior designs”. There is a ratcheting tendency to try ever grander, more challenging structures, in bridges, boats and elsewhere. Correctives come in the form of rare but spectacular failures.

I saw Matt Ridley (British scientist, author, Lord, opinion piece writer etc) write somewhere that humans don't construct ships; the ocean does. (= point being, the ocean destroys boat designs that don't work, and so we're left only with the ones the ocean blessed)

...and I KNEW IT!!

Fucking said so.

Conclusion?Conclusion?

Vasa did not sink because the management team failed to clarify that the customer preferred it to float. It sank because basic technical details — such as everyone using the same ruler — were overlooked.
It sank because it was a dangerously innovative design, made worse by a shipwright’s attempt to play safe. And above all it sank because Vice-Admiral Fleming decided that, rather than tell the king of his last-minute concerns, he would rather go ahead and hope for the best.

"From Washington DC to Downing Street, Wall Street to Silicon Valley, it is a lesson that remains uncomfortably relevant.""From Washington DC to Downing Street, Wall Street to Silicon Valley, it is a lesson that remains uncomfortably relevant."

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