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It's been 50 years since the centuries-old Vasa warship was hoisted up from the depths of Stockholm harbour, but as contributor Elizabeth Dacey-Fondelius discovers, preserving this national treasure has been the Vasa's greatest battle.

The 17th century Vasa warship, Sweden’s most recognizable maritime artifact and archeological asset, celebrates the 50th anniversary of her liberation from the gloom and anonymity of the shallows of Stockholm’s inner harbor.

On April 24th, 1961 thousands of titillated spectators watched as the waterlogged ship shook loose the final grip of relentless sludge, rose from her watery grave and broke the water’s surface for the first time in three centuries.

The Vasa had endured an unceremonious 333-year interlude beneath the waves, only to be raised rather ceremoniously and given a second chance at achieving its former glory.

Despite her blemished beginnings, the Vasa is now a celebrity in her own right having been viewed by an estimated 30 million people in the past 50 years.

Before a visit, people may think the Vasa Museum is just another museum on a Stockholm tour itinerary.

After the visit they may very well have fallen in love.

"We at the Vasa Museum often talk about the ‘Wow Effect’," says Vasa Museum spokesperson Martina Siegrist Larsson.

"It is the moment a visitor first sees the Vasa coming into the museum. Just beyond the doors of the entrance they stop as if frozen and then gasp, ‘Wow’."

The Vasa was supposed to represent the power and might of Lion of the North, King Gustav II Adolf, one of Sweden's most celebrate monarchs at a time when the country was near the apex of its power in Europe.

Her gleaning double-gun decks, ornately adorned with sculpture and allegory were meant to put fear into the foe who might oppose her.

Glorious flags and pennants flew as the Vasa left the docks at Skeppsholmen, where Blasieholmen is today, for her maiden voyage on August 10th, 1628.

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By Nizam Ahmed - Reuters

A ferry carrying more than 100 people capsized in Bangladesh Thursday after colliding with another vessel, killing at least 28 people, police said.

The death toll was expected to rise with some passengers believed trapped inside the ferry and dozens missing, rescuers said.

Hundreds of people die in ferry accidents on low-lying Bangladesh's many rivers every year as operators often ignore rules that authorities fail to enforce.

"Divers are trying to retrieve more bodies from the sunken ferry," a senior police official, Zahurul Islam Khan, told Reuters from the scene before the rescue operations were suspended for the night.

The ferry, M. L. Bipasha, sank after it hit the cargo vessel, which had already capsized a few days earlier, on the Meghna river at Rajapur, 130 km (80 miles) northeast of the capital Dhaka.

Around 40 people jumped off the ferry and swam to the shore after the accident.

"I woke up hearing a big bang and jumped immediately into the water, then swam ashore," a survivor told a television network.

But the ferry, which was sailing from Bhairab -- near the accident spot -- to northeast, sank with the rest of passengers after the collision, local officials said.

From Paul Fraser Collectibles

An annotated technical drawing of the Titanic used in the 1912 British investigation is attracting collectors

A plan of the Titanic used in the inquest into its sinking in 1912 is coming to auction later this year.

Valued at £100,000, the 33-foot long technical drawing is marked with arrows and notes, depicting where survivors of the disaster thought the iceberg had struck.

It was used in the British Board of Trade's inquiry between May and July 1912, which began just weeks after the disaster.

96 witnesses were called to the investigation, including crew members and maritime experts, which concluded that excessive speed was to blame.

Only three passengers were questioned - all of them first class travellers.

The plan will go on display at Belfast City Hall over the Easter weekend before being sold by auctioneer Henry Aldridge & Son on May 28.

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From Google News

Two bottles of 200-year old champagne recently salvaged from a Baltic Sea shipwreck will be auctioned off in June, the local government that owns the bubbly said Wednesday.

Finland's autonomous province of Aaland "has decided that two bottles will be sold at an exclusive champagne auction held in (the capital) Mariehamn on June 3, 2011," it said a statement.

One of the auctioned bottles will be from the house of Veuve-Clicquot and the other from the now extinct house of Juglar.

They are part of a batch of around 150 champagne bottles divers stumbled upon last July in a two-masted schooner which had run aground sometime between 1825 and 1830.

Salvaging of bottles -- preserved in ideal conditions at the bottom of the Baltic Sea -- began in August and authorities identified the bottles as the world's oldest Juglar and Veuve Clicquot brands.

In January, they announced Heidsieck champagne bottles were also in the lot.

"These bottles are unparalleled in the market. You can only speculate on what the end price will be, but it will probably be at record levels," champagne expert Richard Juhlin said in the statement.

In November, when the champagne was uncorked for the world's media and wine experts to taste, Juhlin told AFP that either bottle could fetch 100,000 euros ($144,925).

"Ah!" he had let out in appreciation when tasting the two-century-old bubbly, describing the Juglar as "more intense and powerful, mushroomy," and the Veuve-Clicquot as more like Chardonnay, with notes of "linden blossoms and lime peels".

Aaland officials announced at the tasting event the province would auction off one bottle of each make, but no date had been made public until now.

The designated auction house is Acker Merall and Condit.

The Aaland archipelago at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia belongs to Finland, though it enjoys autonomy from Helsinki and locals speak Swedish.

From Wire Service

The Maritime fur Trade, a fascinating and relatively unknown part of our history is the theme of this year’s Shipwrecks conference at Fort Langley National Historic Site on Saturday, April 30.

The fort is an ideal setting for the conference as its success was directly linked to supporting Russian America. The famous cry “54-40 or fight” came from the fur trade and referred to the boundary between Russian America and British North America.

“Conference speakers will provide a glimpse into this early history of BC” said Lower Mainland director Nicole Ortmann.

This is also an opportunity to learn about other misadventures such as the sinking of the Beaver, the first steamship in the North Pacific and the tragic story of the American ship Tonquin , lost 200 years ago. Keynote speaker Shelley Wachsmann will discuss the impact that tools like sidescan sonar, remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have had for underwater archaeology and the ability of archaeologists to study and record shipwrecks on the previously inaccessible deep-sea floor.

The remarkable story of the finding and excavating a 2,000 year old Sea of Galilee Boat is the subject of the evening Woodward Lecture and dinner. Dubbed “the Jesus Boat” archaeologist Shelley Wachsmann of the Institute for Nautical Archaeology, Texas A&M University, will tell the tale of finding and raising a fishing vessel that was commonly used during the Roman–period.

By Tony Moore - Brisbane Times

The discovery of a 19th-century shipwreck in north Queensland has highlighted the ever-present threat of tropical cyclones in the region.

The remnants of a 30-metre longboat have been unearthed at a beach on Hinchinbrook Island after Cyclone Yasi battered the state in February.

It is believed the wrecked vessel has been buried deep below the sand for more than 130 years.

Ironically, it was another cyclone which likely led to the wreckage being there in the first place.

Queensland government shipwreck expert Paddy Waterson said Cyclone Yasi had removed about 30 metres of sand from Ramsay Bay on Hinchinbrook Island exposing the top "two or three inches" of the old ship.

The wreck was discovered in late February by Ingham fisherman Phil Lowry.

Shipwreck experts in London and Melbourne have been contacted for advice on timber samples in a bid to narrow down which vessel has been discovered.

Three ships were wrecked in Ramsay Bay while trying to recover a load of cedar washed ashore from a ship called The Merchant, which was destroyed during a cyclone in March, 1878.

The logs were bought at a salvage auction by Townsville firm, Campbell and Thomas, who employed the three ships to bring in the cargo.

Unfortunately all three were lost in poor weather: the Harriet Armytage in 1879, the Charlotte Andrews in 1879 and the Belle in 1880.

"The Merchant broke up quite heavily," Mr Waterson said. "It struck a reef out from Hinchinbrook Island. It was carrying a load of cedar which was what a lot of the non-indigenous people in the area were after."

Locals suspect the wreck might be the smaller of the three ships, the brigantine, Belle.

"The brigantine is a little bit smaller, so they tend to be able to work in these sorts of waters a little bit easier," Mr Waterson said.

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By Scott Muska - DelMarva Now

Ship that will be sunk off Ocean City coast should boost fishing and diving.

A former Navy destroyer will soon be sunk off the Maryland coast to serve as a fish-attracting artificial reef.

The USS Arthur W. Radford, a 563-foot vessel, will be sunk in about 130 feet of water in an area about 28 miles northeast of the Ocean City Inlet. The ship will serve as the largest artificial reef to be planted on the East Coast to date, according to Monty Hawkins, chairman of the Maryland Artificial Reef Committee.

"It's just a very big, bodacious project, and I have every expectation it will be a fantastic reef," said Hawkins, who is also an Ocean City Reef Foundation board member.

The boat's sinking location has been mapped to be roughly equidistant between Indian River Inlet, Cape May and Ocean City. Environmental entities from the three states are collaborating on the effort, with the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control leading the project.

The vessel will be sunk in the Del-Jersey-Land artificial reef, where numerous other objects and vessels -- including wooden dry docks and two World War II era U-boats -- have been sunk previously, Hawkins said.

The new reef site should eventually be a big economic boost and an attraction for fishing and scuba diving, said Erik Zlokovitz, artificial reef coordinator for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

"It's going to be a great fishing habitat and an impressive site for scuba divers," Zlokovitz said. "I think it'll be an economic boost, and fishing and diving boats from all three states are going to benefit."

By Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk - Mlive

Remember the Titanic?

How about “Titanic: the Artifact Exhibition” ?

In March, Grand Rapids Public Museum, announced it would be first in the state to host the exhibition of 300 artifacts from the infamous ship, opening in November 2012.

But The Henry Ford announced today – the 99th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic – that it would open the exhibition in March 2012 at the institution formerly known as Greenfield Village and The Henry Ford Museum.

That means the exhibition will be in the Detroit area on the 100th anniversary of its sinking early on morning of April 15, 2012 in the north Atlantic on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City.

Patricia Mooradian, president of The Henry Ford, said the institution is thrilled to bring the exhibition to the Detroit area.

“Known as one of the greatest innovations from that era, this ship was ahead of its time with its top notch engineering, modern equipment and luxuries,” Mooradian said. “Touted by the media as the ship that was 'virtually unsinkable,' no one could believe the magnitude of this disaster that occurred in April of 1912.”

The story is well-known from James Cameron's 1997 film, “Titanic,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, which included actual footage of the ship on the ocean's floor.

“It's an exhibit that really takes you to another place in time,” said Rebecca Westphal, museum's director of marketing and customer experience, in March. “It really brings (the wreck) to a personal level in many ways.”

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