The Mercuur entering Vlissingen, Netherlands to her final berthing place (https://www.museumships.us/netherlands/mercuur)
There are ship enthusiasts all over the world who share the same love shipping and ships. That does not mean that everybody does that in the same way/ Some are visiting archives and libraries searching for the history of a seaman, a ship, a company or the maritime history of an area. Some are walking along the rivers and the coastline, in harbours or at shipyards. Some visit museums looking at paintings, drawings, models and other objects. But nothing is more exciting to visit on board of a ship, to explore it by yourself. To touch the history of ships out of the past. But are such ships still existing and if where. Yes, in your own country it’s easier to discover a museum ship but what about the rest of the world. Well there are some sites which can help you. Such a site is that of MUSEUM SHIPS. There is also a FACEBOOK GROUP MUSEUMSHIPS with an increasing number of followers, at the moment as 8.000, in the meantime an INSTAGRAM MUSEUMSHIPS met 15.000 followers and of course a TWITTER MUSEUMSHIPS.
Starting with the USA the man behind the scene luckily enough for us decided to look outside the USA if there were more museum ships abroad. And yes they are, The result is an ever expanding website of former warships and merchant ships preserved as museum ships all over the world, from a mighty American battleship USS New Jersey to the much smaller Dutch minesweeper Hr.Ms. Onverschrokken (built in the USA) which became in the 1970’s the torpedo work ship Hr.Ms. Mercuur and the Bulgarian torpedo boat Drazki dating from the beginning of the 20th Century.
The Bulgarian torpedoboat Drazki (https://www.museumships.us/bulgaria/drazki)
The website supplies for each museum ship a photograph and background information. I was really surprised how many ships still exists nowadays and never knew of the existence of some ships like in Japan the Mikasa.
Still there are more museum ships existing that the 350 now described despite this already large number! I know form my own country the Netherlands that there are more ships but that’s not a comment but just a remark. I met the webmaster a little time ago when he visited the Mercuur lying at Vlissingen, Netherlands and we discussed in a friendly manner what we were both were doing in the maritime history world. He as webmaster of the website dealing with museum ships and I as board advisor for the Mercuur and one of the men behind warships research.
So everyone who loves ships in general or especially museum ships visit this magnificent website MUSEUM SHIPS and support the man behind with ever improving the website with new details or better new unknown museum ships! It is possible to add new ships, for this purpose use this link MISSING SHIPS?
