On January 16, 1625, the Dutch merchant Arent Hybertszoon de Groote and his brother, the master shipwright, Hen[d]rick Hybertszoon obtained a four year lease of the Royal Navy Shipyard on Skeppsholmen [Holmen] in Stockholm. The contract included the maintenance of the entire Swedish navy and also for the building of four new ships:
| 1626 | a large ship of 136 feet long and 34 feet wide. [Tre Kronor] |
| 1627 | a small ship. |
| 1628 | a large ship, equal in size to the ship of 1626. [Wasa] |
| 1629 | a small ship. |
During that period of time the Swedish navy consisted of some 30 ships-of-war and numerous smaller auxiliary ships.
At the same time the king introduced a money based economy at the shipyard, which was to cause the leaseholders much problem. An additional problem was the use of payments in copper based money which was constantly loosing in value against silver.
It was the merchant Arent Hybertszoon's responsibilities to obtain the necessary resources for the shipbuilding and repair activities, including oak timber, iron, tar, and skilled craftsmen. He was later to illegally export and sell oak timber to be able to get money to pay his Dutch creditors.
At the time of the building of the Wasa, the shipyard employed some 350 people of which 2/3 were shipwrights and carpenters. A large proportion or 20-25 % of these workers had been brought to Stockholm from The Netherlands. The Dutchmen did not like the Swedish beer and demanded that a special beer should be brewed for them. When later, payment of the salaries were not forthcoming the Dutchmen began to return home and the Swedish conscripted shipyard workers tried to desert.
Henrick Hybertszoon had been ill already in November of 1625 but it was reported in the following February that he had recovered sufficiently to be able to take up work on the new ship. It is believed that the keel of the Wasa was laid sometime in March of 1626.
Already in July 1626 Henrick Hybertszoon reported to the Council of State that the Crown owed him 19.000 daler and on September 9 the Treasury was directed to make a part payment of 3000 daler.
On August 12, 1626, the Admiralty signed a contract with Hans Klerck regarding rigging of the ships of the Navy, including the Wasa, and the leaseholders of the shipyard were to supply him with masts and spars.
Henrick Hybertszoon died sometime between March 21 and May 26, 1627, probably late May, after having been ill and bed-ridden for a long period of time.
When Arent Hybertszoon returned from a trip to Holland he was summoned to the king and asked if he "could and would perform" alone what the contract of 1625 required of him and his brother together, to which question he answered "yes".
Margareta Nilsdotter, Henrick Hybertszoon's widow, felt that she was bound by her husband's part in the ship building contract with the Admiralty. According to testimonial evidence from 1646 she is supposed to have said when urged to surrender the contract: "I have to fulfil the contract my late lamented husband has entered, I cannot give it up sooner". This could also have been a way to ensure that the Crown would pay what they owed her late husband.
Arent Hybertszoon had been the principal partner of the two brothers in the contract for the lease of the Royal Navy Shipyard and it now became Margareta Nilsdotter's responsiblilty to handle the economical dealings with the Admiralty and the Treasury for the consortium. She was assisted by Jacob Eriksson, her son in an earlier marriage, who served as her clerk.
Exactly when the Wasa was launched is not known but it probably happened later in the year. Due to Henrick Hybertszoon's long illness his two foremen at the shipyard, Hein Jacobsson and Isbrant Johansson, had been responsible for the building of the ship.
In May of 1628 the vice-Admiral Claes Fleming wrote from Poland to the King that "Almost nothing is done on the Holmen. None of the money provided for the fleet has been forthcoming and there are no answers to the many letters that have been written to Sweden."
After the new ship had capsized on her maiden voyage on August 10, 1628, Arent Hybertszoon resigned his Stockholm citizenship on September 15 and fled the country and returned to Holland two months later. In this way Margareta Nilsdotter got the increased burden of being the only manager of the shipyard. By November 27 it was reported that she had problems in paying the workers at the yard.
She remained in this position until January 9, 1629, when the lease was terminated and the management of the Royal shipyard was assumed by Admiral Fleming. However, already in the late autumn of 1628 the Admiralty had intervened to put an end to the disorder and inefficiency which had lately characterised the work at the shipyard and arrested the Clerk of the Yard and confiscated the accounts.
In 1629 she married the Secretary and Diplomat Lars Nilsson Tungel and died the following year. In the inventory of her belongings was "1 Large Ship with carved decorations", valued at 200 daler.
Updated 1997-07-18 by . Lars Bruzelius
Sjöhistoriska Samfundet | The Maritime History Virtual Archives.
Copyright © 1995 Lars Bruzelius.