Discover stories behind the latest exhibitions, fascinating explorations into maritime science and archaeology, and the surprising details of what happens inside (and outside) a modern working museum.
19 Sep 2011
The immense wealth of the Spanish Empire was both attractive and vulnerable to pirates, as the great galleons sailed along well-defined tracks and at particular seasons towards the narrow passage separating central and south America.
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15 Sep 2011
It is estimated that between 12,000 and 15,000 Australian women married American servicemen during World War II. Some of the women emigrated from Australia and made a new life for themselves in the United States, while others returned to their homelands in the years after the war – with or without their husbands.
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31 Aug 2011
Living in a world where loved ones are little more than just a phone call or email away, it’s hard to imagine the anguish of separation felt by those whose loved ones were oceans apart, with little or no contact. An evocative pincushion in the Australian National Maritime Museum’s collection (00006919) highlights the disconnection felt by many naval and merchant sailors in the 19th and 20th centuries from their loved ones.
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10 Jun 2010
The museum was recently offered a set of shipwright tools – not an unusual occurence. However with some investigation, this particular collection began to reveal an interesting story.
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25 May 2010
Ship portraits can be rather tedious to some. They usually only convey something of interest to those who know particular details about the ship’s construction.
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04 Mar 2010
In 1987 the Australian National Maritime Museum acquired a pearling lugger from Broome. The John Louis was built in 1957 and operated for 30 years in the pearling industry in north-western Australia.
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08 Feb 2010
The Museum has several items from the 1629 wreck of the Batavia on display in the Navigators gallery. One is labelled as a musket barrel. However it is made of thin copper sheeting. Either the Dutch were very brave souls to fire such a thing, or there is more to this ‘musket barrel’ than meets the eye!
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07 Jan 2010
It may seem unlikely that a naval officer who fought in the Crimean War and who led the introduction of steam engines and ironclad warships into the French Navy would possess a delicate painterly hand. It also seems unlikely such a man would favour rustic scenes of Malyasian dock workers or Indian fishing boats and their crews.
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21 Dec 2009
Ever wondered where the geographical term Oceania came from? In the eighteenth century, European explorers were busily charting all the island groups and working out exactly what continents there were – or weren’t – in the Pacific Ocean.
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21 Dec 2009
One of the museum’s volunteer model makers recently donated to the museum a scale model of an early colonial Australian ship that saw many adventures in its comparatively short but very well traveled life. HMS Mermaid was a single masted, copper-sheathed, iron-fastened cutter of 84 tons.
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