The king, who was leading the army in Poland at the time of her maiden voyage, was impatient to see her take up her station as flagship of the reserve squadron at Älvsnabben in the Stockholm Archipelago.

Admiral Klas Fleming's flagship Kristina was wrecked in a storm in the Gulf of Danzig, Riksnyckeln ("Key of the Realm") ran aground at Viksten in the southern archipelago of Stockholm and Vasa foundered on her maiden voyage.

The later layout means that the lower gundeck gunports are a consistent amount above the waterline, avoiding the weight of guns and structure of that deck towards the bow and stern being unnecessarily high.

Since natural fibre ropes can change in length depending on the amount of moisture in them, the standing rigging of a 17th-century ship needed much more adjustment than a more modern sailing vessel.

[52] As was the custom with warships at the time, Vasa was decorated with sculptures intended to glorify the authority, wisdom and martial prowess of the monarch and also to deride, taunt and intimidate the enemy.

The sides of the beakhead (the protruding structure below the bowsprit), the bulwarks (the protective railing around the weather deck), the roofs of the quarter galleries, and the background of the after upper works were all painted red, while the sculptures were decorated in bright colors, and the dazzling effect of these was in some places emphasized with gold leaf.

In the late 1990s, this view was revised and the colors are properly reflected in more recent reproductions of the ship's decoration by maritime painter Tim Thompson and the 1:10 scale model in the museum.

A particularly popular motif is the lion, which can be found as mascarons originally fitted on the insides of the gunport doors, grasping the royal coat of arms on either side, the figurehead, and even clinging to the top of the rudder.

Other accomplished artists, like Hans Clausink, Johan Didrichson Tijsen (or Thessen in Swedish) and possibly Marcus Ledens, are known to have been employed for extensive work at the naval yards at the time Vasa was built, but their respective styles are not distinct enough to associate them directly with any specific sculptures.

[24] As Vasa passed under the lee of the bluffs to the south (now called Södermalm), a gust of wind filled her sails, and she heeled suddenly to port.

[63] Jacobsson stated that he built the ship as directed by Henrik Hybertsson (the original shipbuilder, recently deceased[22]), who in turn had followed the specification approved by the king.

Even if the underwater weight of Vasa was not great, the mud in which she had settled made her sit more securely on the bottom and required considerable lifting power to overcome.

[72] The parts of the hull held together by joinery and wooden treenails remained intact for as much as two centuries, suffering gradual erosion of surfaces exposed to the water, unless they were disturbed by outside forces.

Eventually the entire sterncastle, the high, aft portion of the ship that housed the officers' quarters and held up the transom, gradually collapsed into the mud with all the decorative sculptures.

[74] In the early 1950s, amateur archaeologist Anders Franzén considered the possibility of recovering wrecks from the cold brackish waters of the Baltic because, he reasoned, they were free from the shipworm Teredo navalis, which usually destroys submerged wood rapidly in warmer, saltier seas.

[79] Over the course of a year and a half, a small team of commercial divers cleared debris and mud from the upper decks to lighten the ship, and made the hull as watertight as possible.

[83] In order to establish find locations, the hull was divided into several sections demarcated by the many structural beams, the decking and by a line drawn along the centre of the ship from stern to bow.

These included a wide range of loose finds, as well as chests and casks with spare clothing and shoes, tools and materials for mending, money (in the form of low-denomination copper coins), privately purchased provisions, and all of the everyday objects needed for life at sea.

The lower decks were primarily used for storage, and so the hold was filled with barrels of provisions and gunpowder, coils of anchor cable, iron shot for the guns, and the personal possessions of some of the officers.

This was due to the distribution of mass in the hull structure, and to the ballast, guns, provisions, and other objects loaded on board placing a lot of weight too high in the ship.

In addition, the deck beams and their supporting timbers were over-dimensioned and more closely spaced than required for the loads they carried, contributing too much weight to the already tall and heavy upper works.

In the late 1990s, spots of white and yellow residue were noticed on Vasa and some of the associated artefacts; these turned out to be sulfate-containing salts that had formed on the surface of the wood when sulfides reacted with atmospheric oxygen.

[101] Between 2011 and 2018, the Vasa Museum and the Swedish materials technology group Alleima undertook a long-term research and development project to replace the galvanised bolts with specially designed high alloy stainless steel substitutes, made up of eight components.

[102] The Museum also announced at the end of 2023 that it would be building a replacement cradle and new internal support skeleton for the Vasa at a total cost of SEK 150 million, and was seeking funding from donors and sponsors.

Whilst it is suggested this change was due to King Karl X Gustav being impressed by an English-built ship that he saw, it is likely that the design processes used in English shipyards fitted better with the Swedish state as customer.

In contrast to the older traditional methods used by the Dutch, English shipwrights put plans for a new ship on paper and built models for discussion with those paying for construction.

Within the disciplines of history and maritime archaeology the wrecks of large warships from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries have received particularly widespread attention as perceived symbols of past greatness of the state of Sweden.

[107] The focus of this historical theory lies on the "great periods" in "our [Swedish] history" and shares many similarities with the nationalist views of the Viking Age in the Nordic countries and the praising of Greek and Roman Antiquity in the Western world in general.

Though historically unfounded, the popular perception of the building of the ship as a botched and disorganized affair (dubbed "the Vasa-syndrome") has been used by many authors of management literature as an educational example of how not to organize a successful business.

Commercially produced replicas of many of the objects found on the ship belonging to people on board, such as drinking glasses, plates, spoons, and even a backgammon game, have been made.