Maritime museum

A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on seas and lakes. A naval museum focuses on navies and military use of the sea.

Related Topics:
Museum - Ship - Sea - Lake - Navies

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The great prize of a maritime museum is a historic ship (or a replica) made accessible as a museum ship, but as these are large and require a considerable budget to maintain, most museums exhibit interesting pieces of ships (such as a figurehead or cannon), ship models, and miscellaneous small items like cutlery, uniforms, and so forth.

Related Topics:
Museum ship - Figurehead - Cannon - Ship model - Cutlery - Uniform

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Ship modellers often have a close association with maritime museums; not only does the museum have items that help the modeller achieve better accuracy, but the museum provides a display space for models larger than will comfortably fit in a modeler's home; and of course the museum is happy to take a ship model as a donation. Museums will also commission models.

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There are thousands of maritime museums in the world. Many belong to the International Congress of Maritime Museums (ICMM), which coordinates members' efforts to acquire, preserve, and display their material.

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At 40 acres (162,000 m²), Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut can lay claim to the title of largest museum; it preserves not only a number of sailing ships, but also a large number of original seaport buildings, including a ship chandlery, sail loft, ropewalk, and so forth. However, the UK's National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is also a contender, with many items of great historical significance, such as the actual uniform worn by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar.

Related Topics:
Mystic Seaport - Mystic, Connecticut - Sailing ship - Ship chandlery - Sail loft - Ropewalk - UK - National Maritime Museum - Greenwich - Horatio Nelson - Battle of Trafalgar

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A recent activity of maritime museums is to build replicas of ships, since there are few survivors that have not already been restored and put on display.

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Notable maritime museums:

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• Australian National Maritime Museum
• Baltimore Maritime Museum (Baltimore, MD, US)
• Coral World (St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands)
• Mariners' Museum (US)
• Maritime Museum of the Atlantic (Halifax)
• Maritime Museum of San Diego
• Museum of Maritime Science (Tokyo, Japan)
• Mystic Seaport (US)
• National Maritime Museum (UK)
• San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
• Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam http://www.scheepvaartmuseum.nl/index_ns.htm
• Vasa Museum (Stockholm)
• Wisconsin Maritime Museum, Manitowoc, Wisconsin
• Museum of the World Ocean, Kaliningrad, Russia
• Maritime Museum Ria de Bilbao, Bilbao, Spain, http://www.museomaritimobilbao.org/#
 
Maritime museum: References ►