In 1626 the King of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, began work on what he envisioned would be the most powerful battleship ever to set sail - the Vasa. By all accounts, Gustavus was a brilliant military commander. Over the next two years the King repeatedly alter specifications such that massive amounts of rework were required. The mid-project inclusion of non-essential work - such as adding close to 500 elaborately decorated sculptures - added to the delay. The array of canon on the ship grew both in size and number. The result was an untested design that proved unstable when the ship was launched with great fanfare from the shipyard in Stockholm. Before King and country, the Vasa hadn't made it out of the harbor before a strong breeze tipped the ship so far that water began entering the canon portals and sank the ship.