When a group of divers heard about Oscar Ekblom’s stories, it immediately sparked their interest. It was 1965, and Oscar was already 95 years old when he described hearing about a ship collision during his youth, one that took place in the fairway next to Jutholmen outside Dalarö.
Deep: 11-16 metres
Build: 17th Century
Length: About 25 metres
Width: About 5 metres
Shipwreck: About 1700
Ship type: Fluit
The diving group immediately began searching outside the small lighthouse on Jutholmen. After only three soundings, they got a bite: black oak had stuck to the lead line. They rushed to put on their dive gear and slid down into the dark waters. When they resurfaced, they announced that they had found a wreck measuring about 25 metres long a few tens of metres away from the lighthouse. The group continued to dive and salvaged many objects, including coins dating to 1660-1685.
During 1970-74, the Maritime Museum conducted one of their biggest shipwreck investigations ever of the wreck at the island of Jutholmen. The finds revealed that the ship had probably sunk around the year 1700.
The historian Christian Ahlström attempted to identify the vessel on the basis of the investigation results. In the archives he found information about Johan Lohe, a merchant from Stockholm. Lohe had hired a diver in 1700. The mission was to salvage goods from a ship he co-owned that had sunk at Dalarö.
Ahlström concluded that the sunken vessel outside Jutholmen could be the Dutch ship De Vrede from Amsterdam, shipwrecked in September 1700 while travelling to Amsterdam. Oddly enough, this proposed identification has not been embraced, and the wreck at Jutholmen is still considered unidentified.
Deep: 11-16 metres
Build: 17th Century
Length: About 25 metres
Width: About 5 metres
Shipwreck: About 1700
Ship type: Fluit
