Mars (Makalös)

Type

Ship of the Line

Period

16th Century

Nation

Sweden

Overview: Mars, nicknamed Makalös ("peerless") and known by the epithet Jutehataren, was the flagship of King Eric XIV of Sweden and one of the largest and most heavily armed warships in the world at the time of her construction. She was built at Björkenäs shipyard under Master Shipwright Holgerd Olsson, with her keel laid in 1561 and launch completed by autumn 1563. Specifications: Modern archaeological analysis of the wreck has refined earlier, long-exaggerated estimates of her size. Wikipedia gives a length between perpendiculars of roughly 43 to 45 metres and a beam of about 13.7 metres, with a crew of some 350 sailors and 450 soldiers; other contemporary accounts credit her with over 100 bronze and iron muzzle-loading cannon. She represented a transitional design — one of the last great boarding-tactic ships with towering fore- and sterncastles, yet armed with a new generation of muzzle-loading artillery. Service History: Mars saw combat for the first and only time at the First Battle of Öland during the Northern Seven Years' War, commanded by Admiral Jacob Bagge. The battle took place over two days starting 30 May 1564; on the first day the Swedish fleet sank a Lübeckian ship and badly damaged the Danish flagship, but on the second day enemy fireballs set her ablaze, and as boarders tried to seize her as a prize the fire reached her powder magazine, triggering a catastrophic explosion that sank her with most of her crew. Notable Facts: The wreck lay undiscovered for 447 years until a team of divers led by Richard and Ingemar Lundgren and Fredrik Skogh located it in 2011 using side-scan sonar, roughly 12 nautical miles northeast of Öland at a depth of 75 metres. Thanks to the cold, low-oxygen, low-sediment brackish water, about two-thirds of the hull — including the large sterncastle — remains intact, and after the explosion the hull broke into three main pieces (port side, starboard side, and lower hull) that sank independently; the site has since been documented through extensive photogrammetry and ROV survey and is the centerpiece of an exhibition at Västerviks Museum.