Preserved in Amber: The 18th-Century Dockyard at I<arlslcrona, Sweden by William S. Lind
W
hile few Americans today think of Sweden as a naval power, in the 17th and 18th centuries Sweden was a major European power with a substantial navy. In 1790, when Sweden was at war with Russia and Denmark, the Swedish fl eet included 25 ships of the line and fifteen frigates. (To put this in context, Lord Nelson won Trafalgar, the decisive battle of the Napoleonic Wars, with a fleet of 27 ships of the line.) Ten of Sweden 's frigates were designed to carry 24-pounder guns (not carronades) as their main armament, making them the first 24-pounder frigates in the world, preceding the American Constitution and her sisters. The "wooden walls" of Sweden are of course long gone. But surprisingly, the facilities where they were built and equipped remain largely intact, at the main Swedish naval base of Karlskrona. The author recently had an opportunity to tour the Karlskrona shipyard 1 and see the unique heritage preserved there, almost as if trapped in that famous Baltic product, amber.
Karlskrona's History Karlskrona was founded in 1680 by an act of royal absolutism typical of the era. Sweden's main naval rival was Denmark, and because Copenhagen became ice-free weeks earlier than Stockholm, the Danish fleet could go into action each year sooner than the Swedish. Sweden needed a new naval base in the so uth, on roughly the same latitude as Copenhagen. Instead of choosing an existing port ciry and developing its facilities, King Karl Xl looked at the map, spotted a couple of small islands with farms on them, and said, in effect, "Build it here." At the king's command, town, naval base and protecting forts were built as a combined enterprise, under the direction ofAdmiral Hans Wachtmeister. Work proceeded quickly, and in 1681 the first ship was launched from Karlskrona. While the original grandiose plans were never carried out in full, a handsome town was built, including one of the largest town squares in Europe. The main channel into Karlskrona was protected by two large forts , Drottningskar and Kungsholmen. Drottningskar
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remains today a classic example of 17thcentury trace Italienne fortification, while Kungsholmen was repeatedly modernized and had guns in service until a few years ago. Perhaps because of its excellent fortification, Karlskrona was never assaulted, and by the late 1700s it had become the third largest ciry in Sweden.
AfChapman Nor only did late-18th-century Sweden possess a significant fleet, it also had the services of Europe's most famous naval architect, Fredrik Henrik af Chapman. Swedish naval construction had been controlled by Englishmen since 1659, when King Karl X Gustaf asked O liver Cromwell to send him some shipbuilders. In fact, one family, the Sheldons, were Sweden's Master Shipbuilders for three generations. Fredrik Henrik af Chapman was born in the Royal Dockyard at Goteborg, Sweden, in 1721. His father was a British naval officer who had joined the Swedish navy in 17 16, becoming captain of the dockyard in 1720. F redrik was drawing competent ship plans by age ten. He went on to study shipbuilding in England, Holland and
France; the English first arrested him, then tried to hire him! But Chapman remained loyal to his fami ly's adopted country, and in 1757 he was appointed assistant shipwright at the Karlskrona naval dockyard. Chapman represents a major departure not only in shipbuilding but in the military profession , a transformation that was raking place in all of western Europe in the late 1700s: professionalization. Previously, sh ipbuilders, like military and naval officers, were craftsmen. They learned their trade by copying their seniors and were guided by empiricism, not theory. By the 1770s, this was beginning to change. Military and naval officers were starring to see themselves as members of a profession which had guiding ideas to be learned by study of history and theory. Chapman represents this change in the field of naval ship design. He was recognized in his day, and still is today, as the first scientific ship designer in Europe. And not only ships: Chapman also app lied the principles of the "Age of Reason" to the ways in which ships were built and the facilities to build and equip them. Some of those facilities are still standing in Karlskrona today, including a building
A model of Chapman 5 Type A artillery landing craft and gunboat. (Swedish Maritime Museum, Stockholm)
SEA HISTORY 97, SUMMER 2001