That was normal-enough practice. In a good harbor, in good weather...any normal ship would have been okay. The real problem was the Vasa's design & weight dis

That was normal-enough practice. In a good harbor, in good weather...any normal ship would have been okay. The real problem was the Vasa's design & weight distribution - which were disastrously unstable. Which problem had previously been demonstrated in simple dockside testing. Here's Wikipedia's account: > In the summer of 1628, the captain responsible for supervising construction of the ship, Söfring Hansson, arranged for the ship's stability to be demonstrated for Vice Admiral Fleming, who had recently arrived in Stockholm from Prussia. Thirty men ran back and forth across the upper deck to start the ship rolling, but the admiral stopped the test after they had made only three trips, as he feared the ship would capsize.