Wreck of Huis te Warvalo, the Dutch War Ship

The wreck of Huis te Warvalo, a Dutch war ship that sunk in 1715 has been found in mint condition.

A very well preserved wreck of a three masted Dutch figate has been found in the Gulf of Finland. The ship was originally found in 2005 by the Finnish Maritime Administration while mapping the sea bed.

The wreck of a 35-meter-long war ship Huis de Warvalo was found near the Kalbådagrund lighthouse off the coast of Helsinki. The ship had three masts and fourty cannons on two gun decks.

The historical significance of the find was not clear until two years ago, when Sub Zone, an underwater research company based in Helsinki, began examining the site of the wreck. The find is especially significant and unique because no Dutch war ships from the 18th century have ever been found in the Baltic Sea. And certainly none this well preserved have ever been found anywhere.

The ship is still in excellent condition and its history is known in detail. Historian Peter Swart has even found an old Dutch map that marks the place where the ship sank with the text "Here sunk a war ship from North Holland in 1715" You can find a picture of the map in this article. Only one such ship was reported not to have returned home that year, the frigate called Huis te Warvalo. The size, structure, and the number of cannons, as well as the location of the wreck found match with those of  Huis de Warvalo.

 As it is a war ship that belonged to the state of Holland, precise information about it is still available. Information about ordering the construction of the hull, and crew lists that state where the members of the crew were from. Huis te Warvalo was built in 1708 in the city of Medemblik, about 60 kilometres North of Amsterdam, propably by a ship-builder called Blaauwevlag, and most of the crew came from the same city.

The ship Huis te Warvalo sunk on the 25th of August 1715, apparently after hitting rocks because of bad weather and a storm, conditions very typical of the Gulf of Finland in autumn. It has been reported that 70 men from a crew of 200 survived the ship wreck.

During the period Russia was at war with Sweden. Holland had close trade relations with Russia, so the fleet of 300 Dutch trade ships that sailed the Baltic Sea to St Petersburg in the summer of 1715 were protected by 32 war ships. Huis te Warvalo was one of these.

The baltic sea preserves wooden ship wrecks remarkably well. Its cold, brackish water provides good conditions for preserving sunken wooden ships. The most important factor is the lack of the ship worm that elsewhere eats away the wooden parts of shipwrecks, leaving nothing but scattered metal parts of a ship behind.

The ship lays upright on the bottom of the sea and is in excellent condition. The fore mast still stands and all of the fourty cannons are still there, many of them in their original places.This makes the wreck of Huis te Warvalo a very rare find indeed.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article! Remember, sharing is caring, so if you like my blog, do share with your friends and fellow divers. Check out also this article I wrote about another awesome wreck near Helsinki, Finland. One that anyone can actually dive to. Oh, and I also have aother dive related blog, Scuba Blog Review. You might also want to take a quick look at that. Thanks for reading!