1.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
2.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
3.
Chatham, Kent
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Chatham is one of the Medway towns located within the Medway unitary authority, in North Kent, in South East England. Chatham Dockyard closed in 1984, but major naval buildings remain as the focus for a flourishing tourist industry, Chatham also has military connections, several Army barracks were located here, together with 19th-century forts which provided a defensive shield for the dockyard. Brompton Barracks, located in the town, remains the headquarters of the Corps of Royal Engineers, the town has important road links and the railway and bus stations are the main interchanges for the area. It is the headquarters of Medway unitary authority, as well as its principal shopping centre. The name Chatham was first recorded as Cetham in 880, the Domesday Book records the place as Ceteham. Most books explain this name as a British root ceto plus Old English ham, however, the river-valley situation of Chatham is more consistent with cet being an Old English survival of the element catu that was common in Roman-era names and meant basin or valley. Chatham stands on the A2 road along the line of the ancient Celtic route, which was paved by the Romans, among finds have been the remains of a Roman cemetery. It was established as a Royal Dockyard by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568, initially a refitting base, it became a shipbuilding yard, from then until the late 19th century, further expansion of the yard took place. In its time, many thousands of men were employed at the dockyard, after World War I many submarines were also built in Chatham Dockyard. In addition to the dockyard itself, defensive fortifications were built to protect it from attack, upnor Castle had been built in 1567, but had proved ineffectual, the Dutch Raid on the Medway in 1667 showed that more was required. The threat of a attack from the south during the 19th century led to the construction of even more forts. The second phase of fort-building included Fort Pitt, the 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom ordered, inter alia, a third outer ring of forts, these included Fort Luton, Fort Bridgewood, and Fort Borstal. These fortifications all required military personnel to man them and Army barracks to house those men and these included Kitchener Barracks, the Royal Marine Barracks, Brompton Artillery Barracks and Melville Barracks. In response to the manpower needs, the village of Chatham and other nearby villages. Trams, and later buses, linked those places to bring in the workforce, the area between the High Street and Luton village illustrates part of that growth, with its many streets of Victorian terraces. The importance of Chatham dockyard gradually declined as Britains naval resources were reduced or moved to other locations, the dockyard buildings were preserved as the historic site Chatham Historic Dockyard, which was under consideration as a World Heritage Site the site is being used for other purposes. Part of the St Marys Island section is now used as a marina, under the most recent change, in 1998, and with the addition of the Borough of Gillingham, the Borough of Medway became a unitary authority area, administratively separate from Kent. It remains part of the county of Kent for ceremonial purposes, Medway Council has recently relocated its main administration building to Gun Wharf, the site of the earliest part of the Dockyard, a former Lloyds office building
4.
Kent
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Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
Dundee
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Dundee, officially the City of Dundee, is Scotlands fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2015 was 148,210 which gave Dundee a population density of 2, 477/km2 or 6, 420/sq mi and it lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea. Under the name of Dundee City, it one of the 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Historically part of Angus, the city developed into a burgh in the late 12th century, rapid expansion was brought on by the Industrial Revolution, particularly in the 19th century when Dundee was the centre of the global jute industry. This, along with its major industries gave Dundee its epithet as the city of jute, jam. Biomedical and technological industries have arrived since the 1980s, and the city now accounts for 10% of the United Kingdoms digital-entertainment industry, Dundee has two universities — the University of Dundee and the Abertay University. In 2014 Dundee was recognised by the United Nations as the UKs first UNESCO City of Design for its contributions to fields including medical research, comics. A unique feature of Dundee is that its two football clubs Dundee United and Dundee F. C. have stadiums all but adjacent to each other. With the decline of industry, the city has adopted a plan to regenerate. The name Dundee is made up of two parts, the common Celtic place-name element dun, meaning fort, and a part that may derive from a Celtic element, cognate with the Gaelic dè. The situation of the town and its promotion by Earl David as a trading centre led to a period of prosperity, the earldom was passed down to Davids descendants, amongst whom was John Balliol. The town became a Royal Burgh on Johns coronation as king in 1292, the town and its castle were occupied by English forces for several years during the First War of Independence and recaptured by Robert the Bruce in early 1312. The original Burghal charters were lost during the occupation and subsequently renewed by Bruce in 1327, the burgh suffered considerably during the conflict known as the Rough Wooing of 1543 to 1550, and was occupied by the English forces of Andrew Dudley from 1547. In 1548, unable to defend the town against an advancing Scottish force, in 1645, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Dundee was again besieged, this time by the Royalist Marquess of Montrose. The town was destroyed by Parliamentarian forces led by George Monck in 1651. The town played a role in the establishment of the Jacobite cause when John Graham of Claverhouse. The town was held by the Jacobites in the 1715–16 rising, many in Scotland, including many in Dundee, regarded him as the rightful king. The economy of mediaeval Dundee centred on the export of raw wool, expansion of the whaling industry was triggered by the second Bounty Act, introduced in 1750 to increase Britains maritime and naval skill base
7.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
8.
Full-rigged ship
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A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is term of art denoting a sailing vessels sail plan with three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. A full-rigged ship is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged, the ship-rig sail plan, also differs drastically from the large panoply of one and two masted vessels found as working and recreational sailboats. Alternatively, a ship may be referred to by its function instead, as in collier or frigate. In many languages the word frigate or frigate rig refers to a full-rigged ship, only one five-masted full-rigged ship had ever been built until recent years, when a few modern five-masted cruise sailing ships have been launched. Even a fourth mast is relatively rare for full-rigged ships, ships with five and more masts are not normally fully rigged and their masts may be numbered rather than named in extreme cases. If the masts are of wood, each mast is in three or more pieces and they are, The lowest piece is called the mast or the lower. Topmast Topgallant mast Royal mast, if fitted On steel-masted vessels, note that even a full-rigged ship did not usually have a lateral course on the mizzen mast below the mizzen topmast. Instead, the lowest sail on the mizzen was usually a fore/aft sail—originally a lateen sail, the key distinction between a ship and barque is that a ship carries a square-rigged mizzen topsail whereas the mizzen mast of a barque has only fore-and-aft rigged sails. The cross-jack yard was the lowest yard on a ships mizzen mast, unlike the corresponding yards on the fore and main mast it did not usually have fittings to hang a sail from, its purpose was to control the lower edge of the topsail. In the rare case that the yard did carry a square sail. Above the course sail, in order, are, Topsail, or Lower topsail, Topgallant sail, or Lower topgallant sail, if fitted. The division of a sail into upper and lower sails was a matter of practicality, since undivided sails were larger and, consequently, larger sails necessitated hiring, and paying, a larger crew. Additionally, the size of some late-19th and 20th century vessels meant that their correspondingly large sails would have been impossible to handle had they not been divided. Jibs are carried forward of the foremast, are tacked down on the bowsprit or jib-boom and have varying naming conventions, staysails may be carried between any other mast and the one in front of it or from the foremast to the bowsprit. In light winds studding sails may be carried on either side of any or all of the square rigged sails except royals and skysails and they are named after the adjacent sail and the side of the vessel on which they are set, for example main topgallant starboard stunsail. One or more spritsails may also be set on booms set athwart, one or two spankers are carried aft of the aftmost mast, if two they are called the upper spanker and lower spanker. A fore-and-aft topsail may be carried above the upper or only spanker, to stop a full-rigged ship except when running directly down wind, the sails of the foremast are oriented in the direction perpendicular to those of the mainmast. Thus, the masts cancel out of their push on the ship and this allows the crew to stop and quickly restart the ship without retracting and lowering the sails, and to dynamically compensate for the push of the wind on the masts themselves and the yards
9.
Knot
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A knot is a method of fastening or securing linear material such as rope by tying or interweaving. It may consist of a length of one or several segments of rope, string, webbing, twine, strap, Knots have been the subject of interest for their ancient origins, their common uses, and the area of mathematics known as knot theory. There is a variety of knots, each with properties that make it suitable for a range of tasks. Some knots are used to attach the rope to other such as another rope, cleat, ring. Some knots are used to bind or constrict objects, decorative knots usually bind to themselves to produce attractive patterns. While some people can look at diagrams or photos and tie the illustrated knots, Knot tying skills are often transmitted by sailors, scouts, climbers, canyoners, cavers, arborists, rescue professionals, stagehands, fishermen, linemen and surgeons. The International Guild of Knot Tyers is a dedicated to the Promotion of Knot tying. Truckers in need of securing a load may use a truckers hitch, Knots can save spelunkers from being buried under rock. Many knots can also be used as tools, for example, the bowline can be used as a rescue loop. The diamond hitch was used to tie packages on to donkeys. In hazardous environments such as mountains, knots are very important, note the systems mentioned typically require carabineers and the use of multiple appropriate knots. These knots include the bowline, double figure eight, munter hitch, munter mule, prusik, autoblock, thus any individual who goes into a mountainous environment should have basic knowledge of knots and knot systems to increase safety and the ability to undertake activities such as rappelling. Knots can be applied in combination to produce objects such as lanyards. In ropework, the end of a rope is held together by a type of knot called a whipping knot. Many types of textiles use knots to repair damage, macrame, one kind of textile, is generated exclusively through the use of knotting, instead of knits, crochets, weaves or felting. Macramé can produce self-supporting three-dimensional textile structures, as well as flat work, Knots weaken the rope in which they are made. When knotted rope is strained to its point, it almost always fails at the knot or close to it. The bending, crushing, and chafing forces that hold a knot in place also unevenly stress rope fibers, the exact mechanisms that cause the weakening and failure are complex and are the subject of continued study
10.
Carronade
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A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy and first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, UK. It was used from the 1770s to the 1850s and its main function was to serve as a powerful, short-range, anti-ship and anti-crew weapon. The carronade was designed as a naval weapon with a low muzzle velocity for merchant ships. It was produced by the Carron ironworks and was at first sold as a system with the gun, mounting, the standard package of shot per gun was 25 roundshot,15 barshot,15 double-headed shot,10 single grapeshot, and 10 single canister shot. Single meant that the shot weighed the same as the roundshot, while some other canister and grapeshot were also included which weighed one and a half times the roundshot. Its invention is variously ascribed to Lieutenant General Robert Melville in 1759, or to Charles Gascoigne, in its early years, the weapon was sometimes called a mellvinade or a gasconade. The carronade can be seen as the culmination of a development of naval guns reducing the barrel length, the advantages for merchant ships are described in an advertising pamphlet of 1779. Production of both shot and gun by the firm immediately allowed a reduction in the windage, the gap between the bore of the gun and the diameter of the ball. The mounting, attached to the side of the ship on a pivot, the reduced recoil did not alter the alignment of the gun. The smaller gunpowder charge reduced the heating in action. The pamphlet advocated the use of cartridges, which eliminated the need for wadding and worming. Simplifying gunnery for comparatively untrained merchant seamen in both aiming and reloading was part of the rationale for the gun, the replacement of trunnions by a bolt underneath, to connect the gun to the mounting, reduced the width of the carriage enhancing the wide angle of fire. A merchant ship would almost always be running away from its enemy, a carronade weighed a quarter as much and used a quarter to a third of the gunpowder charge as a long gun firing the same cannonball. The reduced charge allowed carronades to have a length and much lighter weight than long guns. Increasing the size of the bore and ball reduces the length of barrel. Long guns were also heavy in comparison to carronades because they were over-specified, being capable of being double-shotted. Carronades also required a smaller gun crew, which was important for merchant ships. Carronades initially became popular on British merchant ships during the American Revolutionary War, a lightweight gun that needed only a small gun crew and was devastating at short range was a weapon well suited to defending merchant ships against French and American privateers
11.
National Historic Fleet
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The National Historic Fleet is a list of historic ships and vessels located in the United Kingdom, under the National Historic Ships register. National Historic Ships UK is a body which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and other public bodies on ship preservation. As part of this remit, National Historic Ships maintains the National Register of Historic Vessels, as of September 2014 there are 206 vessels on the register, including museum ships, those still in active or commercial service, and a number currently laid up. Some are being restored, others have an uncertain future. Barcelona Charter Search the Registers - National Historic Fleet
12.
Museum ship
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A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the number of museum ships that are still operational. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum, only a few survive, sometimes because of historical significance, but more often due to luck and circumstance. The restoration and maintenance of museum ships presents problems for historians who are asked for advice, for instance, the rigging of sailing ships has almost never survived, and so the rigging plan must be reconstructed from various sources. Studying 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. Another consideration is the distinction between a museum ship, and a ship replica. As repairs accumulate over time, less and less of the ship is of the materials. Visitors without historical background are often unable to distinguish between a historical museum ship and a 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 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 logs, menus. 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, the callsign assigned is a variation on the identification of the ship. For example, the submarine USS Cobia, which had the call 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 wartime call NJVT and is now on the air as NJ6VT, in other cases, such as the USS Missouri, a distinctive call is used. This radio work not only helps restore part of the vessel, 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 the USS Constitutions annual turnaround, a place on the deck is by invitation or lottery only, and highly prized. Many consider the appeal of an interesting old vessel on the city waterfront strong enough that any port city should showcase one or more museum ships. This may even include building a ship at great expense
United Kingdom
