A Canadian in Sweden

Back in action

Hej-do

Well, this post is coming at you from a cafe in Stockholm, where I took a layover of a couple of hours in order to see the city a bit.

I am off to the Vasa museum now to see the only remaining 17th century warship still in existance on the planet. It is quite famous, because on its aft deck it has one of the earliest known and best preserved examples of Sea King landing pads.

Seriously, though, the Vasa was the largest and most expensive warship of her day, and sank a couple of minutes after being launched when water flooded through the gun ports. Oops. The story I want to hear is: what happened to the engineer who designed those gun ports? You have to think that sinking the biggest warship in the world because you misplaced a decimal has got to be a bit embarrassing.

I bet he ended up in the New World, designing highway overpasses for the Quebec government.

posted by Jeff @ 12:56 AM