GÖTHEBORG...

This morning I woke up to gunshots, or rather the cannons from our fortress and the ship Götheborg saluting each other.

This is a new ship, built after the original trader of the same age as the house I live in.

In 1745 the old sail ship Götheborg was just coming back to Gothenburg on the Swedish west coast after a two year trip to China, when she hit a reef at the town entrance and sank. The cargo had a value as high as the entire GNP of Sweden!

When divers 240 years later discovered the wreck, the idea was born to build an exact replica, which is now coming to Stockholm for the first time.

Nice to see her and to be reminded of what it looked like here in the past.

The ship is 40.9 m, 58.5 m over all and 11 m wide displacing 1.150 tonnes.
The main mast is 47 m high and she carries 1.900 sqm of sails.

I´ll try to get some close up pictures later...

In 1736 when this house was built, there were no wiring or plumbing at all..

Built for the Customs as the only stone house that was allowed together with the Church and the Fortress. The exterior walls are 20 inches thick and the interior 15!

The drawing below is made in 1797, our house in the centre, some windmills behind and the previous fortress across the strait. The original ship Götheborg was passing here on her maiden journey after being built in Stockholm, just as the new Götheborg now arrived on her maiden journey after being built in Gothenburg!

Further below is a picture taken a week ago while a more modern boat was passing, just about one hundred years old...

Yes, I think they used the red tiles in the beginning as most houses in the city of Stockholm. In the early 1900:s they were replaced with steel roofs, some painted green to look as copper but most of them were black. After another period of tiles, this has become fashion today again and many new houses have steel-roofs instead of tiles.

On the ship Götheborg, she left tonight but too late for getting pictures when she was passing here. You can however see updates on the site www.soic.se , especially after the 2:nd of October when her two year roundtrip to China is expected to begin!

Today Götheborg arrived to Stockholm again. She has now been all the way to China and she also visited some Mediterranean ports. Here she is docked outside the museum of Wasa, the Royal warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 in central Stockholm. She was found in 1958 and lifted in 1961. They both have the same "styling"...

It was nice having you here Carl, and I look forward to show you more the next time you can come this way. About Wasa, you can almost see on the model, why she sank. She was too topheavy and a wind gust got her ballast and cannons to roll over to one side and she sank very fast.