The Type 21 frigate and veteran of the Falklands War, PNS Tariq (ex-HMS Ambuscade) is expected to return to her birthplace on the Clyde sometime next year, to become a ship museum. HMS Ambuscade was built by Yarrow Shipbuilders on the Clyde 1n 1973 and served with...
The Dunkirk Maritime and Port Museum (Musée Maritime & Portuaire de Dunkerque) tells the history of France’s third largest port, its workers, its ships, and its seamen. “Wait! What? Third largest?” That may come as a surprise to some, because to most people, especially anglophiles, Dunkerque or...
If all is going as planned, the giant Iowa-class battleship USS New Jersey (BB-62) is on her way back down the Delaware River today, returning to her permanent mooring on the Camden waterfront after a 91 day visit to the Philadelphia Navy Yard for maintenance and repair....
A new display of ‘Jolly Roger’ flags flown by Royal Navy submarines is launched today (27/03/2024) at The Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Gosport. It will expand the museum’s previous collection of Jolly Rogers by including the earliest known surviving example and the museum’s newest acquisition, a Jolly...
The SS Keewatin museum ship, an Edwardian Great Lakes passenger steamer, is moving from her current home in Port McNicoll on Lake Michigan to the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes at Kingston on the St. Lawrence River. The 103m long ship was purpose built for the...
The city of Erie in Pennsylvania on the east bank of Lake Erie, is considering the creation of a new ship museum using a Cold War era, Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate. The connection is Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, the 19th century American naval commander, who...
The WWII Tank Landing Craft, LCT 7074, a veteran of D-day, has finally made the journey from Portsmouth Naval Base to her new home on Southsea where she will be the newest addition to the D-Day Story museum. The newly renovated 59-metre long, 300-ton ship was moved...
Long overdue, the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) and Mary Rose are collaborating on ticketing. It was always ludicrous that a visit to the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth meant dealing with two separate ticketing systems. Ludicrous but understandable. The two organisations that share the Historic...
The museum ship SS John W. Brown, one of only two World War II ‘Liberty’ ships preserved and still operational*, is looking for a new home. The Liberty ships were the cargo-carrying workhorses of the Allied war effort. They were produced with conveyor belt efficiency in huge...
HMS M33 is the smallest of the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN)’s museum ships and you’ll find her in her dry dock next to HMS Victory. She is significant because she is the last remaining ship from the Gallipoli campaign in WW1. History HMS M33...
I finally paid a long overdue visit to Portsmouth last month and caught up on the key ‘attractions’ on both sides of the harbour. I’m going to address the main attractions – HMS Warrior, HMS Victory, HMS M33, The Mary Rose museum, The Royal Navy Submarine Museum...
The thing with ‘icons’ is that you know what to expect when you finally see them. Sometimes the scale is unexpected – eg. “Oh, the Mt Rushmore heads are smaller than I thought!” (they were) – but the detail is exactly as anticipated. I have seen HMS...
Nobody visits Stockholm, for business or pleasure, without visiting the Vasa Museum, and that’s as it should be – the Vasa is, without doubt, one of the great treasures of the world. The story The Vasa was King Gustavos Adolphus’ brand new flagship for the Swedish Navy...
I’ve long meant to pay Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s maritime masterpiece a visit, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Potted History Brunel must have been a commandingly persuasive man because somehow he got the Great Western Steamship Company to approve two serious departures from normal shipbuilding techniques for their...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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