The Nao Victoria Museum is located in

Punta Arenas Punta Arenas (; historically Sandy Point in English) is the capital city of Chile's southernmost region, Magallanes and Antarctica Chilena. The city was officially renamed as Magallanes in 1927, but in 1938 it was changed back to "Punta Are ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, and has been open to the public since 1 October 2011. The museum is private, the owner has received the Medal of the

President of Chile The president of Chile ( es, Presidente de Chile), officially known as the President of the Republic of Chile ( es, Presidente de la República de Chile), is the head of state and head of government of the Republic of Chile. The president is r ...

for his work in promoting national identity during the celebrations for the bicentenary of the independence of the South American country. Spanish Vice Consul in Punta Arenas gave the entrepreneur the prize "Hispanic Identity" for the building of the Nao Victoria Replica. Museo Nao Victoria Visitante vestido de soldado español

Museo Nao Victoria Visitante vestido de soldado español

Aim of the Museo Nao Victoria

The museum's goal is to be interactive and offer its visitors the experience of interacting with replicas of the ships that contributed to the discovery of the area, colonization of the territory, or have a special and historic heritage significance for the

Magallanes Region The Magallanes Region (), officially the Magallanes y la Antártica Chilena Region ( es, Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena), is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. It is the southernmost, largest, and second lea ...

of Chile. The replicas were built using traditional shipbuilding techniques.

Collections

The main collection of the museum is the full-size replicas of historic ships on display along the

Straits of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pas ...

. Replicas of weapons and ancient navigation tools are also exhibited as well as copies of documents and books relating to the historic ships and an outdoor shipbuilding workshop.

Replicas

Today the museum has three ship replicas:

''Nao Victoria''

Nao Victoria ''Victoria'' (or Nao ''Victoria'') was a carrack and the first ship to successfully circumnavigate the world. ''Victoria'' was part of the Spanish expedition to the Moluccas commanded by the explorer Ferdinand Magellan until his death in the P ...

'', was a carrack, long, wide, that was part of the fleet commanded by

Ferdinand Magellan Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...

that discovered the waterway around southern tip of the South American continent. Later, commanded by Juan Sebastian Elcano, she was the only ship of the five to complete the first-time

circumnavigation Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body (e.g. a planet or moon). This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth. The first recorded circumnavigation of the Earth was the Mage ...

of the globe. Commanded by

Duarte Barbosa Duarte Barbosa (c. 14801 May 1521) was a Portuguese writer and officer from Portuguese India (between 1500 and 1516). He was a Christian pastor and scrivener in a '' feitoria'' in Kochi, and an interpreter of the local language, Malayalam. Barbo ...

, ''Nao Victoria'' participated in the Discovery of Chile, being the first to explore the region in 1520, and discovering or naming

Patagonia Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and g ...

Cape Virgenes Capes in the Americas Cape Virgenes ( es, Cabo Vírgenes, lit=Cape Virgins) is the southeastern tip of continental Argentina in South America. The southern one, a little to the south-west, is Punta Dungeness. Ferdinand Magellan reached it on 21 Oc ...

, the

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...

, the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the contin ...

and other milestones. She is one of the most famous ships in history of navigation.

''James Caird''

''James Caird'', was a lifeboat of the ''Endurance'', adapted by

Harry McNish Henry McNish (11 September 187424 September 1930), often referred to as Harry McNish or by the nickname Chippy, was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He was responsible for much of the ...

, and sailed from

Elephant Island Elephant Island is an ice-covered, mountainous island off the coast of Antarctica in the outer reaches of the South Shetland Islands, in the Southern Ocean. The island is situated north-northeast of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, west-so ...

to South Georgia during Sir

Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of ...

's 1916

Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing ...

. Many historians consider the feat of the crew of ''James Caird'' to be the most impressive of all global navigation.

Schooner ''Ancud''

''Ancud'' was the ship that, under an 1843 mandate of the President of Chile, Manuel Bulnes, claimed the Strait of Magellan on behalf of Chile's newly independent government, building Fort Bulnes. Commander of the schooner was Captain John Williams Wilson. On 31 December 2011, the museum announced the construction of a replica of the schooner in its shipbuilding workshop; the replica ''Ancud'' was opened to public on 5 September 2012.

HMS ''Beagle''

, a British Navy

brig-sloop In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

, was converted into an exploration vessel. The most famous of her three trips was the second one under the command of Captain

FitzRoy Fitzroy or FitzRoy may refer to: People As a given name *Several members of the Somerset family (Dukes of Beaufort) have this as a middle-name: **FitzRoy Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan (1788–1855) ** Henry Charles FitzRoy Somerset, 8th Duke of Beau ...

. On board was the young

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

. HMS ''Beagle'' remained in the Magellan región for almost three years, and the observations made by Darwin were influential in the development of his theory of evolution. The construction of the full-size HMS ''Beagle'' replica started in November 2012. Four years later, in November 2016, the museum announced that the vessel was completed.

Other collections

Shipbuilding workshop

During summer 2013 the shipbuilding workshop of the Museum built a one third size scale replica of an 18th-century galleon.

References

External links

*
Article of the James Caird Society on Museo Nao Victoria's Replica

Official HMS ''Beagle'' replica construction blog

Official HMS ''Beagle'' replica website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nao Victoria

Museo Nao Victoria The Nao Victoria Museum is located in Punta Arenas, Chile, and has been open to the public since 1 October 2011. The museum is private, the owner has received the Medal of the President of Chile for his work in promoting national identity during ...

Museums in Magallanes Region Maritime museums in Chile History museums in Chile Museums established in 2011 2011 establishments in Chile