Solen – Rising like the sun

To finance the construction of large warships, an additional tax was instituted in 1664 that came to be known as “ship aid”. Thanks to this tax, the construction of three large warships was financed: Mars and Jupiter in 1665 and Solen in 1667.

When Solen was completed, she was one of the largest ships in the fleet and was immediately put into active service. She took part in several major naval battles, including as an admiral’s ship at the Battle of Køge Bay in July 1677, where the Danish fleet won a major victory.

Solen managed to make it through all the battles she engaged in, which many of the other major warships did not. Instead, Solen ended her days in 1694 as the foundation for a bridge in Örlogshamnen in Karlskrona.

During an archaeological excavation in 2015, the wreckage of two ships was found under the Lindholmbron bridge, and the ships were immediately assessed to have wrecked before 1850. With the help of historical maps, both shipwrecks could be identified. One was the royal ship Victoria, built on Skeppsholmen in Stockholm in 1658, and the other was Solen.

The ships had been sunk as part of the construction of the bridge connecting Trossö with the island of Lindholmen. Although most of the wreckage is covered by rocks, parts of Solen in particular are still visible, including the stern, which protrudes nearly two metres from the bottom.