{"text":[[{"start":3.76,"text":"Four hundred years ago, in a Stockholm shipyard, work began on Vasa, the pride of the Swedish navy. King Gustavus Adolphus was at war, and gave orders to his shipwrights to build something impressive. In accordance with the king’s instructions, Vasa was ambitiously designed, heavily armed and lavishly decorated. Construction and rigging took two years, and so it was 398 years ago that the ship began its maiden voyage, sailing out past the king’s cheering subjects with both rows of gunports open, ready to fire a salute."}],[{"start":34.367,"text":"It must have been a spectacular sight, with the tallest mast standing almost 50 metres above the water, and the ornately carved stern of the ship towering above the waves as though some baroque cathedral organ had floated out into the Baltic."}],[{"start":47.92,"text":"None of this lasted for more than a few minutes. Vasa had drifted for about a mile when a gust of wind caught the ship from the side, pushing it into a pronounced lean — pronounced enough, in fact, that some of the gunports dipped below the waterline. The ship shuddered and then swiftly and inexorably sank to the bottom of the harbour, sailors desperately clinging to the masts as they protruded from the surface."}],[{"start":71.2,"text":"In any other circumstance, nearly 450 men would have drowned. Fortunately, the ship’s crew had not yet embarked, most of the sailors were on the upper decks, and there were plenty of boats nearby to stage a rescue. Nevertheless, about 40 people are thought to have died. The captain, Söfring Hansson, survived and was immediately arrested."}],[{"start":96.55,"text":"The waters of Stockholm’s harbour — cold, oxygen-starved and brackish — proved to be a safe resting place for the wreck, which was recovered 333 years after sinking. Today, Vasa is the breathtaking centrepiece of one of Stockholm’s most popular museums."}],[{"start":106.179,"text":"Adolphus was out on campaign, and nobody in Stockholm was terribly keen to break the news to him, but eventually the entire privy council got together to send a collective report. Adolphus’s furious reply demanded to know who was responsible."}],[{"start":120,"text":"Even four centuries later, the sinking of Vasa is an instructive affair, although it is important to draw the right lessons. A 2001 paper in The Academy of Management Executive is titled “Vasa Syndrome: Insights from a 17th-Century New-Product Disaster”, and offers various gems — for example, that the shipwrights should have clarified the customer’s goals, which would have revealed a crucial but unstated preference for a ship that floats."}],[{"start":145.04,"text":"The first lesson I draw is to plan for failure, because in bold new projects it is common. That’s not just business-school pablum — the engineer Henry Petroski, in his book Success Through Failure, describes the tendency of bridge engineers “overconfidently building increasingly longer bridges modelled on successful prior designs”. There is a ratcheting tendency to try ever grander, more challenging structures, in bridges, boats and elsewhere. Correctives come in the form of rare but spectacular failures."}],[{"start":175.447,"text":"In the case of Vasa, the king demanded an unprecedented number of heavy guns, and the shipwright, Dutch-born Henrik Hybertsson, realised this would require a second gun deck. Hybertsson had never tried to build such a ship and in an excess of caution he over-reinforced the upper decks. The combination of massive guns supported by massive timbers on a high deck made the entire ship top-heavy."}],[{"start":198.8,"text":"Hybertsson died early in the construction process and his deputy, Hein Jakobsson, stuck to the story that he had simply built the design approved by the king. Jakobsson had widened the ship by 17 inches, which presumably made it more stable, but claimed he had been constrained by what had already been agreed and built."}],[{"start":214.858,"text":"The inevitable inquiry examined a number of possibilities: was the captain drunk? Were the crew drunk? Were the cannon untied and rolling around? The final verdict was probably correct: the ship’s design was unstable from the start and Vasa was always likely to capsize. The late Henrik Hybertsson was to blame. Hybertsson could neither defend himself nor be punished. That state of affairs seemed to suit everyone."}],[{"start":238.16,"text":"A second lesson is not well known. The “Vasa Syndrome” paper doesn’t mention it, and the otherwise excellent guide at the Vasa museum hadn’t heard of it. But the museum’s head of research, Fred Hocker, notes that the wreck contained four carpenters’ rules, all slightly different lengths. With Dutch shipwrights carrying out a contract in Stockholm, perhaps it is not surprising to find that both the Amsterdam foot (11 Dutch inches) and the Swedish foot (12 Swedish inches) are represented. These feet are, respectively, 283 and 297mm."}],[{"start":269.903,"text":"Probably as a result of this failure to standardise, Vasa was more asymmetric than most ships of the day, giving it a tendency to lean to port — as it did on the day it sank. This can’t have helped. And while it would be hard to imagine a project today failing because nobody could agree how many inches were in a foot, there is no shortage of cases in which apparently trivial technical details were taken for granted."}],[{"start":294.32,"text":"The third lesson — and to my mind the most tragic — is that disaster could easily have been prevented. The people who decided to set sail knew that Vasa was unstable. A few days before departure, Captain Söfring Hansson arranged a demonstration for his boss, Vice-Admiral Klas Fleming: 30 sailors ran back and forth on the top deck to get the ship rolling. This was a traditional test and the sailors would typically shuttle across more than a dozen times, but the ship rolled so alarmingly that Fleming called off the test after three, muttering that he wished the king were at home."}],[{"start":327.292,"text":"Had Gustavus Adolphus been in town, the demonstration could have been repeated for his benefit. The ship could have been modified; even with a single deck it would have been formidable, or the upper deck could have been equipped with fewer or lighter cannon. But the king was — as usual — away on campaign, sending letters demanding that Vasa set sail as soon as possible."}],[{"start":346.838,"text":"Vasa did not sink because the management team failed to clarify that the customer preferred it to float. It sank because basic technical details — such as everyone using the same ruler — were overlooked. It sank because it was a dangerously innovative design, made worse by a shipwright’s attempt to play safe."}],[{"start":364.715,"text":"And above all it sank because Vice-Admiral Fleming decided that, rather than tell the king of his last-minute concerns, he would rather go ahead and hope for the best. From Washington DC to Downing Street, Wall Street to Silicon Valley, it is a lesson that remains uncomfortably relevant."}],[{"start":381.375,"text":"Find out about our latest stories first — follow FT Weekend Magazine on X and FT Weekend on Instagram"}],[{"start":388.976,"text":"Letter in response:"}],[{"start":390.644,"text":"Measurement errors still sink projects / From Christopher Ruane, Lanark, South Lanarkshire, UK"}],[{"start":400.32,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1789746718_5194.mp3"}