1Early-modern Sweden expanded rapidly through regions conquered by war. Even though the empire occupied a large area, it was sparsely populated and most inhabitants were peasants. People with specific competences, from merchants to bureaucrats or ironworkers, had to be recruited from abroad. Through recruiting skilled master shipwrights in foreign countries, the Swedish navy could remain up-to-date with the latest technologies and techniques of European shipbuilding. In the early 17th century such shipwrights were usually recruited from the Netherlands, though from the mid-16th century, when the Netherlands joined Denmark in the wars against Sweden, shipbuilding competence was also sought in England. This is quite a well-known story in the history of Swedish naval architecture (Eriksson 2017a, 2017b).
2The Dutch and later English influences were most evident in the larger ships. Besides these, the Swedish navy had a large number of smaller vessels. In the written sources some of these are named as lodja or struss vessels. The phonetics of these designations already reveal that these types of vessels originate from the eastern side of the Baltic Sea and Russia. The influences from Eastern Europe on early-modern Swedish naval architecture appear to have been substantial, and yet they have not received as much scholarly attention as the influences from the Netherlands or England.
3The lodja is a type of vessel that seems to have been particularly numerous. In 1617 for instance, it was suggested that the Swedish navy should have at least 100 vessels of this type during times of peace (Zettersten 1890, p. 326-327). The lodja was a wide, flat-bottomed vessel that appears to have varied considerably in size. By reason of specific coincidences in connection to a certain campaign or conflict, the navy ordered lodjas to be mass-produced according to specific dimensions (Zettersten 1903, p. 78; Åkerlund 1951; Alopaeus 2018).
4Since the lodja deserves a separate paper, the following will concentrate on the second type of vessel, namely the struss. According to the Swedish Academy Dictionary (SAOB), the word derives from the Slavonic strudzi, which is the name of a large, flat-bottomed boat somewhat like a hoy, used for transport on rivers and around shallow coasts (SAOB, entry: struss). Furthermore, the designation is without doubt related to the Russian word strug. Through the centuries, the term has been used for a wide range of vessels of different sizes. Written sources mention that strugs were used in medieval Russian trade on the Daugava River, and from the 16th and 17th centuries the term referred to a large, flat-bottomed military and cargo vessel used on, for instance, the Volga (Petr Sorokin, personal communication, Tredrea, Sozaev 2010, p. 362). Whereas lodjas were clinker built and produced by almost any shipyard, from large ones controlled by the crown to small local vernacular shipyards, the struss – at least those used by the Swedes – was carvel built. They were fitted with a small cabin in the stern and some images depict them with leeboards to improve their sailing capabilities.
5The struss was built in several different sizes, and written sources mention 30, 48, 70 and 80 feet in length from stem to sternpost. They could be sailed with a crew of five to ten in addition to one captain. The Swedish army used the struss on the rivers and along the eastern coasts of the Baltic Sea during the Thirty Years’ War (fig. 1) (Zettersten 1890, p. 328; Börjeson 1937, p. 30). In 1621 Swedish forces conquered Riga in present-day Latvia. Due to the uncertain situation regarding the ongoing war, it was decided not to establish a large shipyard for building large warships in the vicinity of the city. Instead, the efforts were directed at building smaller vessels that could be used for transporting soldiers on the rivers. King Gustav II Adolf thus ordered that one large lodja and six struss should be built annually in Riga (Zettersten 1890, p. 285).
Fig. 1: The Swedish King Gustav II Adolf, depicted as ‘The Lion from the North’, travelling aboard a struss
(Royal Library Stockholm)
6In 1626 Sweden took Elbing and it was decided that the town should be used as a winter quarter for Swedish vessels. A shipyard was established in 1629, and a small fleet consisting of 22 strusses and four lodjas were placed at Elbing. Captain Lars Mattsson, who appears to have been a reliable and competent individual, was given command of the shipyard. The crown, at least, thought well of him, as he was later ennobled under the fitting name of Strusshielm, which literally translates as “struss helmet” (Zettersten 1890, p. 68). In the House of Nobility in Stockholm, which has carefully painted depictions of the coats-of-arms of the Swedish nobility, the coats-of-arms of both Strusshielm and Strussköld (struss shield) depict the relevant vessel (fig. 2).
Fig. 2: The coats-of-arms belonging to Strusshielm (left) and Strussköld (right) as depicted in the House of Nobility in Stockholm
(photographs Gabriel Hildebrand, Riddarhuset)
7Until recently the sources describing what a struss looked like have been limited to depictions and some descriptions. Recent research in the Swedish military archives has identified the so-called ‘Edesö Wreck’ as the armed vessel Bodekull (for a thorough account with full archival references, see Eriksson 2018a and 2018b). However, even if Bodekull is a struss, it is quite an odd example, as it was rebuilt in a manner that appears very different from the vessels used by Gustav Adolf.
8The background against which Bodekull was built and later rebuilt is the wars of Swedish King Karl X Gustav. During his short reign, from June 1654 to February 1660, Sweden was engaged in conflicts at several levels and on several fronts, and the war stretched to various corners of Europe (for an overview of the war at sea, see Askgaard 1974; Glete 2010, p. 175-184).
9In November of 1659 the king wrote from Kronborg castle in Denmark to the Admiralty Board in Stockholm, informing them that they should “build 45 struss to transport our soldiers and horses” (RR, 1659-11-30, folio 3509, author’s translation). The vessels were to be used to invade Denmark and the king had the vessels used during the Thirty Year’s War in mind when he formulated the order. He thus mentions that, “during the late Gustaf Adolf’s realm such vessels were used in Prussia and Pillau” (RR, 1659-11-30, folio 3509, author’s translation). Karl Gustav listed the preferred main dimensions for the vessels: 60 feet between the posts and 18 feet wide. Half were to have gaff sails and the other half square sails (Zettersten, 1903, p. 310–311).
10Those with square sails had two masts while those with gaff sails had one, which is another difference compared to, for instance, the vessels depicted on the Strusshielm and Strussköld coats-of-arms, which show a single mast with square sail. However, there are also examples dating from the 1630s where a struss was rigged with three masts (Börjeson 1937, p. 30-31, note 3).
11The Admiralty thought that the dimensions suggested by the king were much too small, not least as the intention was to carry 40 horses aboard each struss. The size of the vessels was thus increased to 72 feet in length, and only the first few examples, including the struss that was later named Bodekull, were built measuring 60 feet from stem to sternpost.
Fig. 3: Section and plans of Bodekull
A) longitudinal section of Bodekull’s hull. Note that there are two rows of deck beams. The upper deck (1) and the lower deck (2). B) Plan of the upper deck, completed after Karl X Gustav’s death, when it was decided to rebuild the vessels. C) The remains of the deck structure that were originally intended to be the upper deck of the original struss. Note the half beams indicating which parts were to be decked in the bow and stern, leaving an open area (3) for horses amidships. Timbers (4) were added abaft the transom beams in order to rebuild the originally flat stern into a round tuck.
(drawings Niklas Eriksson, Jon Adams, Jim Hansson)
12The king also stipulated that the vessels were to be completed by the first day of spring. It should be noted that this order was sent to the Admiralty Board on the last day of November 1659. To build an entire invasion fleet during four or five cold and dark winter months was quite a challenge and the Admiralty Board made their best efforts to complete the task. Ten to 12 were to be built in Stockholm, ten in Gothenburg, eight in Västervik, six in Halmstad and 12 at a recently founded shipyard in the town of Bodekull in the county of Blekinge, a former Danish territory that was given to Sweden in the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The first Swedish vessel completed here was thus named after the town. The town’s name was changed to Karlshamn in 1664.
13An English master shipwright named Thomas Day was employed in Sweden in 1659. He was in charge of the design at the shipyard in Bodekull and built the vessels in accordance to the king’s orders. In February 1660 the king died suddenly from a short illness, which brought an end to the Danish war. In consequence, there were partly finished struss vessels at shipyards all over Sweden, for which the navy had no use. The Admiralty Board decided to rebuild the larger ones into small frigates to carry between 12-16 guns (Bergman 1954, p. 14-17; Wendt 1950, p. 187-90; Eriksson 2018a, p. 396, 20187b, p. 26-27).
Fig. 4: Reconstruction of the original design of the vessel
The hull is only decked in the bow and stern in order to allow for the transport of horses. The later additions, as well as the extended stern, are shown as a grey shadow. Compare fig. 3.
(drawing Niklas Eriksson)
14The smaller ones, including the vessel that was later to become the Bodekull, were rebuilt in a similar fashion. Their hulls were built higher and a new deck level, which was built above the structure of the original deck, was introduced, and finished with a quarterdeck and a forecastle. What is interesting is that elements of the original struss design are still preserved and visible inside the wreck that rests on the seabed, 30 m below the surface of the Stockholm archipelago (figs 3 and 4).
15According to the king’s specifications, the vessels were to be built with “een plickt framme och en kajuta akter” (“a small deck in the bow and a cabin in the stern”), leaving an open space amidships to provide room for horses. The horses were to be placed in two rows along the length of the hull, with their heads facing each other. Each horse would require between 2 and 2.5 feet. The Admiralty estimated that the smaller version of the struss could accommodate 20 horses (Eriksson 2018a, p. 394-395, 2018b, p. 22-23).
16A principal difference between 17th century Dutch and English shipbuilding is the design of the stern. Whereas the Dutch built square sterns below the wing transom, the English introduced the round tuck. Bodekull was originally designed with a square stern but was rebuilt as a round tuck, which is not surprising as the work was done under the command of an English master shipwright. Additional timber was added abaft the sternpost and transom beams, resulting in the hull being about 2 feet longer and finished with a round tuck stern (Eriksson 2018a, p. 397-398, 2018b, p. 30-32).
17In August of 1660 a detailed report describing the activity at the shipyard in Bodekull was sent to the Admiralty Board in Stockholm. Both Bodekull and her sister-vessel Jonas had been launched. There was no master woodcarver available at the shipyard and the lieutenant wrote that the Admiralty Board should decide, “what carvings should be made when the vessels arrive in Stockholm”. He comments on their appearance through mentioning, “[h]ad they English beakheads, they were small English frigates” (letter from Daniel Strussflycht 1660-08-08, KrA, Registry of the Admiralty, author’s translation). The vessels, at first intended for transporting horses, were now rebuilt in such a manner that they appeared as small frigates (Eriksson 2018a, p. 399, 2018b, p. 32-34)!
18Some occasional examples of vessels of this type had been equipped with a few cannons as early as the 1630s, though in general struss were unarmed. They were used for transport and not for engaging the enemy (Börjeson 1937, p. 30-31, note 3). When Karl X Gustav ordered his invasion fleet to be built in 1659, his intention was likely that the vessels should be more or less unarmed. However, according to a written report from the shipyard, Bodekull and Jonas had been rebuilt such that they could carry six guns astern the mainmast and four before the main mast. The preserved hull structure reveals an arrangement of gunports that corresponds to this report (Eriksson 2018a, p. 400, 2018b, p. 35).
19Both Jonas and Bodekull were finished and finally equipped in 1661. A document stipulating both vessels’ food supply has been relocated and reveals two categories of food: food for commoners and kajutkost, which literary translates to ‘cabin food’. The latter category was served in the cabin and was thus reserved for officers and prominent guests (Söderlind 2006, p. 50–69; Eriksson 2014, p. 139-144; Hammar 2014, p. 102-105). The size of the crew is not known, though a document mentions that the sister vessel Jonas had a crew of eight in addition to one officer.
20Even if Bodekull measures only 19 m between posts, the interior reveals a clear spatial hierarchy and division between the few people onboard (for the spatial arrangement aboard Bodekull, see Eriksson 2013). The original struss design only had a cabin in the stern, whereas the remainder of the hull, except for a small deck in the bow, was left open.
21The navy’s smaller units, including strusses and lodjas, have not left a great impression in the written sources in the same way as the larger fighting ships have, and yet it was vessels such as these that were the inalienable workhorses of the navy, necessary for the transport of people, horses, and provisions in times of both war and peace. The written sources mention that both Jonas and Bodekull were used for transporting everything from letters to people and salvaged cannons from sunken warships. Most commonly, however, the two vessels transported flour for the Swedish navy: a very important task. As an indication of the quantities involved, one could mention that during July 1678 the navy needed 252 barrels of flour for provisions (Eriksson 2018b, p. 38). It was while transporting a load of flour that Bodekull struck a rock in the Stockholm Archipelago and sank in October of the same year (for an account on the wrecking of Bodekull see Eriksson 2018a, p. 401, 2018b, p. 38-41).
22The theme of this ISBSA has been Open sea, closed sea – Local traditions and inter-regional traditions in shipbuilding, Bodekull is indeed an interesting case in this context as the vessel reveals influences and traditions from various corners of Europe. It began as a struss, aimed to be used on rivers and closed seas, a type of vessel that originates from the Baltic and Eastern Europe. It was built in an area conquered from Denmark, was named after a former Danish town and was intended for warfare against Denmark. It was under the supervision of an English master shipwright that the vessel was built and rebuilt.
23The craftsmen that built the vessel were Swedish, English, German and Danish (see also Lundgren 1999 for an overview). The carvings were made in Stockholm, probably under supervision of the German-speaking master woodcarver Jost Shütze. Bodekull is thus a piece of material culture sprung out of a variety of different traditions and nationalities, all entangled by the events of history. In a sense, this is quite characteristic of early-modern Sweden.
24The author would like to thank Krzysztof Zamościński from the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk and Petr Sorokin from the Russian Academy of Sciences for important information and remarks regarding strug.