Stockwin's Maritime Miscellany (35 page)

St Mary Overie Dock

Cathedral St

London SE1 9DE

Telephone: 020 7403 0123

Open: daily, but in case of closure for functions it is advisable to check before visiting

This is a full-sized reconstruction of the famous Tudor warship in which Sir Francis Drake circumnavigated the world in 1577–80. Queen Elizabeth I visited the galleon on Drake’s return and decreed that the ship should be preserved at Deptford so that the general public could visit the ship and celebrate England’s success. The original
Golden Hinde
therefore became Britain’s first museum ship! This replica ship, now permanently berthed in London, has herself circumnavigated the globe.

http://www.goldenhinde.com/

Merseyside Maritime Museum

Albert Dock

Liverpool L3 4AQ

Telephone: 0151 478 4499

Opening hours: daily, closed over Christmas

Located in an old warehouse in Albert Dock, the museum celebrates the city’s long-held seafaring traditions and particularly the importance of the merchant navy. The museum’s exhibits reflect the city’s role in the transatlantic slave trade and emigration. One of the jewels of the museum is its collection of ships in bottles made by
Jo
Dashwood-Howard. Among the fine collection of ship models are 39 miniature ships made by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic wars.

http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/

Nantucket Whaling Museum

15 Broad Street

Nantucket

Massachusetts

Telephone: 508 2281894

Open: check website for current details

Many people today look on whaling with revulsion, but in the past it was generally seen as a brave, romantic – and lucrative – enterprise. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Yankee whaling ships sailed the oceans of the world for years at a time, returning with oil for the lamps of America and Europe. The Nantucket Whaling Museum houses a fascinating record of the heyday of whaling, including ships’ logs, a huge finback whale skeleton and scrimshaw.

http://www.nha.org/sites/index.html

The Museum of America and the Sea

Mystic Seaport

Connecticut

Telephone: 860 572 5315

Open: daily. Closed Mondays in the winter months and over Christmas

Located on the banks of the Mystic River, an area with centuries-old maritime traditions, this foremost living history museum features a re-created nineteenth-century seafaring village, an impressive collection of sailing ships and boats (including the
Charles W. Morgan
, the world’s last wooden whaleship) and a preservation shipyard where craftsmen keep alive old skills with the use of traditional methods and tools. As well, over the 15-hectare site, there are many formal exhibits and galleries plus a planetarium that demonstrates how seamen used the stars for navigation.

http://www.mysticseaport.org/

The Mariners’ Museum

Newport News

Virginia

Telephone: (757) 596-2222

Open: daily, closed over Christmas

Over 5,600 square metres of gallery space showcase all manner of splendid sea artefacts. The collection of 1,200 nautical navigation instruments includes such treasures as a mid-seventeenth-century silver astrolabe and a marine barometer thought to have been on Cook’s voyages. Among the other permanent exhibitions is ‘The Age
of
Exploration’, which chronicles the developments in shipbuilding, ocean navigation and cartography that made possible the voyages of the period between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. A perennial favourite is the ship model collection of August F. Crabtree.

http://www.mariner.org/index.php?oatsad=29

USS
Constitution

Building 5, Charlestown Navy Yard

Charlestown

Massachusetts

Telephone: (617) 242 – 5670

Open: see website for current details

Affectionately known as ‘Old Ironsides’, she’s the oldest warship afloat still in commission and America’s ‘Ship of State’. The vessel was launched on 21 October 1797 from a shipyard a stone’s throw from her current berth just across the Charles River from Boston. USS
Constitution
was one of six frigates built to form the genesis of the US Navy. In the War of 1812 in an encounter with HMS
Guerriere
a cannonball bounced off her thick hull, at which a sailor reportedly shouted, ‘Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!’ She is still crewed, maintained and sailed by the US Navy.

http://www.history.navy.mil/USSconstitution/index.html

Maritime Museum of San Diego

1492 North Harbor Drive

San Diego

California

Telephone: 619-234-9153

Open: daily

This maritime museum features one of the finest collections of historic ships in the world including the world’s oldest active ship,
Star of India
. An 1863 barque, she now sails at least once a year. You can also see HMS
Surprise
, the replica of an eighteenth-century Royal Navy frigate that featured in the film
Master and Commander
. The museum’s permanent collection is presented in five galleries representing major themes of maritime history.

http://www.sdmaritime.com/

Sail opens up the world
Square-rigged ships make heroic open-ocean voyages practical

Race for Empire
Nations clash as they discover and colonise the world

Climax of Age of Sail
The struggle to dominate the seas

Sunset of Age of Sail
Steam and brute force; end of an era

There were hundreds of ship types in the Golden Age of Sail, ranging from the smugglers’
abari
to the corsairs’
xebec
. Here are the vital statistics of some of history’s famous wooden ships, along with three of today’s grandest vessels for comparison.