July 14, 2006
Ship Museums Posted by John Steele Gordon at 03:00 PM EST A few days ago I wrote that I would come up with a list of historic ships that can be visited. Here it is, although it is surely by no means complete. I would be grateful to hear from readers who know of other ship museums.
COMMERCIAL SHIPS The Mayflower II was built in England in the 1950s and is a replica, as near as can be, of the original. While of course among the most famous ships in American history, she is also a very good example of what workaday commercial vessels of the early seventeenth century were like. The Susan Constant, Discovery, and Godspeed are also early-seventeenth-century ships, all smaller than the Mayflower. SS Great Britain: Designed by the greatest engineer of the mid-nineteenth century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the SS Great Britain was revolutionary in its day, the first true passenger steamer. Left a wreck on the Falkland Islands, she has been restored to her original glory in the port where she was built, Bristol, England. Cutty Sark: The clipper ship was an American invention and reached its fullest glory in this country. But there are no American clippers still in existence. The Cutty Sark, built for the tea trade with the Far East, is smaller but still an “extreme clipper,” built for speed and the final evolution of the full-rigged ship first developed in the fifteenth century. South Street Seaport, in New York City, has several ships on permanent display plus the occasional visitor, including the Peking, built in 1911, one of the last commercial sailing vessels. WARSHIPS
Many of the ships mentioned below are moored near other, smaller, or less famous vessels that are also open to the public. Mary Rose: The only sixteenth-century warship in existence, she was built in 1511 and lay in Portsmouth Harbor for 437 years after she sank. Ships not too different from the Mary Rose fought the Spanish Armada. She is in Portsmouth, England. Vasa is the only seventeenth-century warship in existence. She is in Stockholm. HMS Victory is the only eighteenth-century ship of the line still in existence and one of the most famous ships in the world, the holy of holies of Royal Navy history. In Portsmouth, England. USS Constitution: Still afloat and still in commission, the most famous of all early American warships. In Boston. HMS Warrior: Britain’s first iron-hulled battleship, launched in 1860, she made wooden-hulled warships obsolete. Solve: A Swedish warship built in 1874. As close as you’ll come to what the USS Monitor was like. Huascar: Built in 1865 in England, she served in both the Peruvian and Chilean navies. USS Olympia (also here): Dewey’s flagship at the Battle of Manila and now moored at Philadelphia, the only surviving example of the Great White Fleet era in American naval history and a fine example of late-nineteenth-century warships. Aurora: The most famous of all Russian naval vessels, thanks to her part in the Russian Revolution, she served at the battle of Tsushima and survived that debacle probably only because, as a cruiser, she was not in the line of battle. Moored at St. Petersburg. Mikasa: Built in Britain between 1899 and 1902, the Mikasa was Admiral Togo’s flagship at his great victory at Tsushima and the only surviving example of a pre-dreadnought battleship. She is moored at Yokusuka, Japan. USS Texas: The Texas is the only surviving dreadnought battleship, laid down only a few years after HMS Dreadnought herself. She is moored at Houston. There are several World War II battleships in existence, including USS Missouri, at Pearl Harbor; USS Massachusetts, at Fall River, Massachusetts; USS Wisconsin, at Norfolk, Virginia (she couldn’t go to her eponymous state, because she doesn’t come close to fitting through the Welland Ship Canal around Niagara Falls); USS North Carolina at Wilmington, North Carolina; USS New Jersey, at Camden, New Jersey. USS Intrepid: A World War II aircraft carrier (although with many post-war changes in design, such as her angled deck), the Intrepid is moored on Manhattan’s West Side, although she will be leaving shortly for an 18-month refit. USS Nautilus: The world’s first atomic submarine, as revolutionary a vessel as HMS Warrior or the USS Monitor, she is moored at Groton, Connecticut.
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