The Shipwreck Conservation Centre is a branch of the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, opened in 2016 in a specially designed building in

Tczew Tczew (, csb, Dërszewò; formerly ) is a city on the Vistula River in Pomerelia, Eastern Pomerania, Kociewie, northern Poland with 59,111 inhabitants (December 2021). The city is known for its Old Town and the Vistula Bridge, or Bridge of Tczew ...

, near the Vistula River Museum. The museum consists of two main parts: the conservation workshop and the studio warehouse, which complement each other.

Funding

The Centre was opened thanks to a collaboration with the

Norwegian Maritime Museum The Norwegian Maritime Museum ( no, Norsk Maritimt Museum) is located at Bygdøynesveien on the Bygdøy peninsula, on the western side of Oslo, Norway. The Norwegian Maritime Museum is situated near several other museums, including the Fram Muse ...

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

and the

Museum of Cultural History, Oslo Museum of Cultural History ( no, Kulturhistorisk museum, KHM) is an association of museums subject to the University of Oslo, Norway. KHM was established in 1999 as ''Universitetets kulturhistoriske museum'' with the merging of the bodies ''Univ ...

. It was funded by the EEA and Norway Grants (85%) and the Polish

Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland ( pl, Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego) is a governmental administration office concerned with various aspects of Polish culture. It was formed on 31 October 200 ...

(15%). The aim of the grant was to make maritime heritage accessible to young people and future generations.

Conservation workshop

The workshop is fitted with modern equipment and is used to conduct the conservation and reconstruction of recovered fragments of ships and other objects. The workshop is divided into smaller work areas including a steel workshop, a boat building and carpentry workshop; RTG and scanning equipment and a spectrometer used for examining the composition of metal fragments. Wood recovered from underwater by

archeologists Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscape ...

is conserved in a special tank system, where it can be immersed in special solutions. Cleaning objects made of metal is accomplished using specialised cleaner machines. Heavy elements are moved with a gantry crane capable of lifting up to 5 tons. The workshop is a large warehouse, without inner walls. The mezzanine allows visitors to see the restoration works in progress and observe each stage of conservation and reconstruction.

Studio warehouse

The studio warehouse serves as a large exhibition space. Along one of the walls, historical boats and boat fragments are hung. The boats originate from Poland (the oldest presented boats were built in the 5th and 7th centuries AD) and Africa (acquired by Polish ship crews). The exhibition also features a collection of

kayaks A kayak is a small, narrow watercraft which is typically propelled by means of a double-bladed paddle. The word kayak originates from the Greenlandic word '' qajaq'' (). The traditional kayak has a covered deck and one or more cockpits, each s ...

from the 1930s to 1950s. The floor area is used to display large ship elements such as the

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

and fragment of side of The Copper Ship (Miedziowiec). The exhibition is completed by three historical

yacht A yacht is a sailing or power vessel used for pleasure, cruising, or racing. There is no standard definition, though the term generally applies to vessels with a cabin intended for overnight use. To be termed a , as opposed to a , such a pleasu ...

s: Opty (yacht of

Leonid Teliga Leonid Teliga (28 May 1917 – 21 May 1970) was a Polish sailor, writer, journalist, translator, and the first Pole to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe on his yawl ''Opty''. Life Youth Although he was born in Russia, his parents deci ...

, the first Pole to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe),

Dal In Indian cuisine, ''dal'' (also spelled ''daal'' or ''dhal''; pronunciation: , Hindi: दाल, Urdu: ) are dried, split pulses (e.g., lentils, peas, and beans) that do not require soaking before cooking. India is the largest producer of p ...

(on which Andrzej Bohomolec, Jerzy Świechowski and Jan Witkowski were the first Poles to sail across the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...

) and Kumka IV – a pioneering construction by

Tadeusz Sołtyk Tadeusz Sołtyk (born 30 August 1909 in Radom, died 14 July 2004 in Warsaw) was a Polish aircraft designer and aerospace engineer, most famous as the creator of the PZL TS-11 Iskra After graduating from the Mechanical Department of the Warsaw Univ ...

, one of the first welded yachts. Smaller objects (elements of ship equipment and cargo) are placed in the studio warehouse shelving units, where visitors can see them from up close.

Visitor facilities

The Centre conducts educational activities (museum lessons and guided tours of the conservation workshop). The museum is accessible to people with disabilities. Guided tours for people with impaired vision are offered, including the possibility to explore selected exhibits by touch.

References

External links