Thanks for the info about the Vasa.  I have followed what has been published in
the popular pressover the years about the sinking and the raising of the ship.
It is too bad about the attempted preservationgone bad.  I'm sure the time,
effort and cost was huge but the try at preserving an important pieceof
national/nautical history has been important even if the lesson was what not to
do. My mind was boggled when I read about the two different standards for a
foot.  How could someone (anyone?)not notice in 2 1/2 years of construction that
something just didn't look right?  But then Frank reminded meof the Mars mission
that crashed a lander into the surface of the planet.  An ounce of prevention is
worth 0.4536 kg of cure.  We humans...ain't we a kick. chuck
 

> 
> The ship sank for a number of reasons, the two big ones
> being that the king ordered it to be lengthened while it
> was under construction, so it was too narrow, and the king
> ordered another gun deck that put a lot of weight up high.
>  The ship went about 1000 yards from the dock on its maiden
> voyage before it rolled over and sank.

> Hocker's meticulous measurements paid off. They gave him
> fresh insight into what made the Vasa unstable.
> 
> For one thing, the ship was asymmetrical, more so than most
> ships of the day.
> 
> "There is more ship structure on the port side of the hull
> than on the starboard side,"? explains Hocker.
> "Unballasted, the ship would probably heel to port."?
> 
> No wonder the ship tipped to the port side when the winds
> hit.
> 
> But why was the ship so lopsided?
> 
> While examining the ship, Hocker discovered four rulers the
> workmen had used. Those rulers were based on different
> standards of measurement at the time.
> 
> Two were in Swedish feet, which were divided into twelve
> inches. The other two were in Amsterdam feet, which had
> eleven inches in a foot. So each carpenter had used his own
> system of measurement.
> 
> "When somebody tells him, make that thing four inches
> thick, his four inches is not going to be the same as the
> next guy's four inches,"? says Hocker. "And you can see
> those variations in the timbers, as well."?
> 
 > How about that!  Have Swedish shipwrights build one side of
> the boat while the Dutch shipwrights build the other and
> they aren't the same - by a long shot!  Not so bad in a
> house, but apparently pretty disastrous in a big ship.
> 
> Ed Minch

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