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Great point, the proper character is not hard to use

Depends on the era, building material and size.

A well-built 74-gun ship-of-the-line built out of well-dried oak were on average in service for maybe 30-50 years. British second rates (90-gun ships) tended to be in service for 60-80 years unless they were wrecked.

On the opposite end we have ships like the Endymion class frigates, which served for about a decade. But these ships were built out of fir instead of oak (because of a shortage of oak and the need to complete them quickly)

Swedish ships tended to live a hard life though, and a very large amount of them were sunk or captured. The longest serving ship was Äran (Glory), with it's 90 years in Swedish service before sinking (due to fire).

Hmm, sounds very low, so I don't think that's correct. I know that the cannons apparently had a much longer service life than the ships themselves tho, and that they'd be salvaged and reused when one sank.

For Swedish "regalskepp" (the largest ships of the navy during the 1600s):

Äpplet - 3 years, sold

Vasa - 0 years, sank instantly

Äpplet - 29 years, sunk on purpose (the one in the article)

Kronan - 43 years, sunk on purpose

Göta Ark - 16 years, scrapped

Scepter - 39 years, sunk on purpose

Draken - 21 years, stranded during battle

Viktoria - 28 years, sunk on purpose

Saturnus - 45 years, though was rebuilt and renamed Bohus after 25 years

Riksäpplet - 15 years, sank during storm

Svärdet - 13 years, sank in battle

Wrangel - 49 years, though was rebuilt after 25 years

Nyckeln - 14 years, sank by own crew during battle to avoid capture

Mars - 12 years, captured by Denmark

Jupiter - 45 years, sank (not sure why)

Venus - 39 years, though was rebuilt and renamed Finland after 18 years

Kronan (aka Stora Kronan) - 4 years, exploded and sank during battle

Solen - 25 years, sunk on purpose

Mercurius - 48 years, though was captured by the Dutch 5 years after it was launched

Please note that these dates are the time that passed from launch to sinking or decommissioning, and that not all of them had a service life that long.

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I heard that these old wooden ships usually serverd around 12 years before being replaced.

Æblet is danish for 'the apple'.

They already have a bigger boat. (dun dun)

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The -et suffix is the definitive form, like adding "the" to a word.

Äpplet = The Apple

At the time it was a rotten Applet, or Äpplet. Various redditors point to the difference, none show the difference in spell.

A bit lax to not even check that the Vasa actually sunk August 10, 1628.

It was sunk on purpose to block a passage for enemy ships, 29 years after it first set sail. It was already damaged and worn at the time, to the point where it was deemed too expensive for repairs to be worth it.

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It would actually be amazing

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>Edit: Would the umlaut have been used in the 17th century? Vowel shift perhaps?

"Ä" is actually not an "A" with an umlaut, it's its own separate letter in our alphabet. As is "Å" and "Ö".

And I believe they were used back in the 17th century, but I'm not a linguist so I'm not sure.

And Sahara means desert in Arabic

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Why did it sink?

I actually think it's a little bit disrespectful to the Swedish language to not use the correct spelling, "Äpplet". I know that most non-Swedes wouldn't be able to pronounce it correctly, but they can at least spell it correctly in a headline!

I always think the people who work uncovering and interpreting stuff like this have the best jobs in the world.

When you scuttle a ship in the entrance of a harbour defensively, as a blockship, this is usually done to force those that enter the harbour to sail in closer to the cannons of a fortress.

Would be cool if they made a museum around it, instead of the other way round.