Checking the Design

There are no surviving plans for the Vasa, because there never were any! Today we would be scandalized by this lack of documentation, but it was not common in those days to have detailed drawings; the naval architect had a few carefully guarded calculation tables and rules of thumb, but most of the boat was built on-the-fly. Although this was the common practice in those days, and certainly not to be condoned as reasonable practice today, one can only speculate on whether having detailed drawings would have altered subsequent events.