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More than 1,000 historic Swedish warships lying at the bottom of the Baltic Sea have been recorded in a new public database known as the ‘War Log’.
The database was created as part of The Forgotten Fleet – Sweden’s Blue Cultural Heritage 1450-1850 programme. Researchers on the project carried out extensive mapping of all known Swedish warships sunk in storms or battles, or those deliberately scuttled in the area, from the late 15th to mid-19th century. They also identified, located, and documented a further 25 ships. Of the ships in the database, the wrecks of around 10 per cent have been discovered to date, and there are indications of where a further 16 per cent may be located.
All of this information is now available online at http://www.vrak.se/sv/sok-i-orloggen for anyone to search and download. According to Jim Hansson, marine archaeologist at Vrak – Museum of Wrecks and project manager for the database, ‘there is no country in the world that has as many preserved warship wrecks as Sweden. We hope and believe that the War Log will be an important and useful tool for both researchers and anyone interested in knowing more about these ships.’
