She Sailed Anyway
An after-hours warship tour for a test team
The ask
I chair the board of a hardware company. Three weeks before launch, our test team in Stockholm found a fault and held the release, against pressure from all of us, the board included. They were right. There are eight of them. Around $3,000.
The gift
An evening tour of the Vasa Museum in Stockholm after closing time, booked for the team, with a museum guide of their own. Vasa is the best-preserved seventeenth-century ship in the world, raised almost whole from the harbor where she sank; the Tudor Mary Rose, her nearest rival among raised warships, survives as half a hull. Afterward a table for eight waits at Ulla Winbladh, a Swedish inn a short walk away on Djurgården.
Why it's extraordinary
In 1628 thirty men ran back and forth across her deck to make her roll for a vice admiral. She heeled so hard the test was stopped. She sailed anyway, and sank in under a mile. This team chose otherwise.
The moment
After closing they walk the length of the hull with their guide, then stroll over to dinner and retell the week they held the release.
A curator replies within one business day.
