From the seventeenth-century empire of Sweden, the story of a galleon that sank at the start of her maiden voyage in 1628 must be one of the strangest tales of the sea. (1)_______________________. This was the Vasa, royal flagship of the great imperial fleet. King Gustavus Adolphus, 'The Northern Hurricane', then at the height of his military success in the Thirty Years' War, had dictated her measurements and armament. Triple gun-decks mounted sixty-four bronze cannon. She was intended to play a leading role in the growing might of Sweden. As she was prepared for her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, Stockholm was in a ferment. (2)_______________________. They had laboured for three years to produce this floating work of art; she was more richly carved and ornamented than any previous ship. The high stern castle was a riot of carved gods, demons, knights, kings, warriors,mermaids, cherubs; and zoomorphic animal shapes ablaze with red and gold and blue, symbols of courage, power, and cruelty, were portrayed to stir the imaginations of the superstitious sailors of the day.
