Functional 17th Century Rigging

In the spring of 2009, the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation was pleased to welcome Dr. Fred Hocker and Olof Pipping, respectively the director and rigging expert of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden for a special seminar on the rig of the Swedish warship Vasa (1628).

Prior to their visit, Pipping sent plans for a 1:10 scale model of Vasa's upper decks, masts, spars, sails, and rigging which Glenn Grieco constructed at the Ship Model Laboratory and assembled at the Riverside campus Conservation Research Laboratory. Dr. Kevin Crisman's class on Rigging and Outfitting and other students, staff and faculty of the Nautical Archaeology Program then had the opportunity to completely rig the model using scaled versions of the lines the actual sailors would have had to use to perform the same tasks on the original ship.

The following images show the model being rigged: