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25-657: The Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM) is a non-profit maritime museum located in Vergennes, Vermont , US. It preserves and shares the history and archaeology of Lake Champlain . LCMM studies and manages the shipwrecks discovered in Lake Champlain, and presents history of the people and culture of the Lake Champlain region through the preservation and analysis of artifacts. Founded in 1985,

50-497: A maritime museum . Relatively few ships are preserved beyond their useful life, due to the high cost of maintaining them against the ravages of the elements. Most are broken up and sold for scrap, while a relative handful are sunk as naval target practice, scuttled to create artificial reefs , and so on. Some survive because of historical significance, but more often due to luck and circumstance. Since an old ship tied up at dockside, without attention, still decays and eventually sinks,

75-820: A ship chandlery , sail loft , ropewalk , and so forth. 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. Another is operating a museum harbour , most notably in Germany and the Netherlands but elsewhere too, that offers mooring to privately owned historical vessels, which can be watched but not boarded. The preservation of ships in museums ensures that ancient and historic vessels are preserved for posterity in optimum conditions and are available for academic study and for public education and interest. Remains of ancient and historic ships and boats can be seen in museums around

100-521: A display space for models larger than will comfortably fit in a modeller's home, and of the museum is happy to take a ship model as a donation. Museums will also commission models. There are thousands of maritime museums in the world. Many belong to the International Congress of Maritime Museums , which coordinates members' efforts to acquire, preserve, and display their material. There is a risk that too many maritime museums might dilute

125-491: A distinctive call (in this case KH6BB) is used. This radio work not only helps restore part of the vessel, but also provides worldwide publicity for the museum ship. A number of the larger museum ships have begun to offer hosting for weddings, meetings, other events, and sleepovers, and on a few ships still seaworthy, cruises. In the United States, this includes USS  Constitution ' s annual "turnaround", when

150-667: A five phase $ 44 million plan to raise and preserve the Spitfire , a gunboat that was sunk in the Battle of Valcour Island . The museum has a collection of replica vessels to study the region's maritime history. These replicas provide insights into the ships, their crews, and the era they represent. The first replica made was the Perseverance , a Bateau from the French and Indian War era, completed in 1986. Encouraged by its success,

175-852: A partnership between the museum and the Lake Champlain Transportation Company . Its design is based on the General Butler , a schooner wrecked in Burlington Harbor on December 9, 1876, and the O.J. Walker , another sailing canal boat which sank in 1895. LCMM conducts educational, boatbuilding, and boating programs, and hosts lectures, annual juried photography shows, and historical re-enactment events. LCMM also offers classes ranging from on-water exploration to traditional crafts; and staff educators conduct wintertime outreach to area schools, visiting students in their classrooms and helping them learn about

200-436: A sense of how the crew got around. The interior features restored but inactivated equipment, enhanced with mementos including old photographs, explanatory displays, pages from the ship's logs, menus, and the like. Some add recorded sound effects, audio tours or video displays to enhance the experience. In some cases, the ships radio room has been brought back into use, with volunteers operating amateur radio equipment. Often,

225-473: Is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums , which focus on navies and the military use of the sea. 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, many museums preserve smaller or more fragile ships or partial ships within

250-685: Is the best preserved dockyard from the Age of Sail. 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 . The largest in the United States of America is 19 acres (7.7 ha), Mystic Seaport in Mystic, Connecticut; it preserves not only a number of sailing ships , but also many original seaport buildings, including

275-697: The American Revolutionary War , 19th-century maritime commerce, and Lake Champlain's archaeological resources. Area youth organizations partner with the museum to build either a Cornish pilot gig or a Whitehall pulling boat through a collaborative building process. In 2005, the Lois McClure toured the lake and the Hudson River . A similar tour was carried out in 2007 on the New York State Barge Canal ,

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300-530: The callsign assigned is a variation on the original identification of the ship. For example, the submarine USS  Cobia , which had the callsign NBQV, is now on the air as NB9QV. The World War II submarine USS  Pampanito , berthed at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park , had the active service callsign NJVT and is now on the air as NJ6VT. In other cases, such as USS  Missouri ,

325-400: The case during the ships' historical period). Visitors without historical background are also often unable to distinguish between a historical museum ship and a (more-or-less historically relevant) ship replica, which may serve solely as a tourist attraction. Typically the visitor enters via gangplank , wanders around on the deck, then goes below, usually using the original stairways, giving

350-617: The experience for the public, while a poorly managed museum might put other municipalities off from the idea of hosting such a museum. At 80 acres (32 ha) the Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent, UK can lay claim to being the largest maritime museum in the world, incorporating numerous dockyard buildings, including a 1/4 mile long ropewalk, spinning rooms, covered slips, dry docks, smithery, sail loft, rigging house, mould loft, church, as well as three historic warships, it

375-413: The museum buildings . Most museums exhibit interesting pieces of ships (such as a figurehead or cannon ), ship models , and miscellaneous small items associated with ships and shipping, like cutlery , uniforms , and so forth. 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

400-558: The museum then built the Philadelphia II , a revolutionary war gunboat, launched in 1991. This replica is an accurate reproduction of the original vessel which was sunk in combat at the Battle of Valcour Island , which was raised from the lake's bottom in 1935 and is currently preserved at the Smithsonian Institution . The museum's primary vessel is the canal schooner Lois McClure , launched in 2004, built by

425-532: The museum took up residence in an old stone schoolhouse on the grounds of the Basin Harbor Club, a private resort situated on the lake's shoreline, and opened to the public in 1986. Since its opening LCMM has expanded to include 18 buildings at two sites housing collections and exhibits, a boat shop and small shipyard, blacksmith facilities, an archaeological conservation laboratory, a museum store, offices, and lecture space. LCMM expanded in 2001 with

450-659: The opening of the Burlington Shipyard in the city of Burlington, Vermont , some 20 miles north of LCMM's main campus. The following year the museum acquired the Capt. White Place , a c.1815 ship captain's home in Burlington, and in 2004 moved its Burlington offices and exhibits from the shipyard into the Lyman Building , a city-owned facility on the Burlington waterfront. In June 2017, the museum announced

475-634: The practice of recent years has been to form some sort of preservation society, solicit donations from governments or private individuals, organize volunteer labor from the enthusiasts, and open the restored ship to visitors, usually for a fee. When the USN turns over one of their ships to a museum, a contract must be signed, stating that the Navy bears no responsibility for the costs of restoration, preservation and maintenance. Also, major pieces of equipment such as engines and generators must be permanently disabled . If

500-534: The present-day incarnation of the Erie Canal . Some of the museum's regular annual special events include rowing competitions and the Rabble In Arms historical re-enactment weekend. There is also an annual small boat show, and exhibits of photos taken by both amateur and professional photographers from around the region. .. Maritime museum A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum )

525-437: The restoration and operation of traditional watercraft still in operation. Another consideration is the distinction between a "real" museum ship, and a ship replica . As repairs accumulate over time, less and less of the ship is of the original materials, and the lack of old parts (or even "appropriate" work tools) may lead to the use of modern "short-cuts" (such as welding a metal plate instead of riveting it, as would be

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550-417: The ship requires services such as electricity and water, they must come through shore connections. The restoration and maintenance of museum ships presents problems for historians who are asked for advice, and the results periodically generate some controversy . For instance, the rigging of sailing ships has almost never survived, and so the rigging plan must be reconstructed from various sources. Studying

575-496: The ships also allows historians to analyze how life on and operation of the ships took place. Numerous scientific papers have been written on ship restoration and maintenance, and international conferences are held discussing the latest developments. Some years ago, the Barcelona Charter was signed by a variety of international owner organizations of traditional vessels, and provides certain accepted minimum criteria for

600-643: The vessel would have looked like, although the vessel itself no longer exists. The Council of American Maritime Museums serves as network for museum professionals in North America. Museum ship Several hundred museum ships are kept around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though many are not naval museum ships, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships . Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with

625-664: The world. Where a ship is in a good state of preservation it can sometimes act as a museum in its own right. Many museum ships , such as HMS Victory are popular tourist attractions. Some ships are too fragile to be exposed outdoors or are incomplete and must be preserved indoors. The remains of the Mary Rose for example are kept in a purpose designed building so that conservation treatment can be applied. In some cases, archaeologists have discovered traces of ships and boats where there are no extant physical remains to be preserved, such as Sutton Hoo , where museum displays can show what

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