The Maritime Museum of San Diego exists not quite in the shadow of the bigger and better known USS Midway Museum. It lies about half a mile north of the converted aircraft carrier, on the far side of the city’s cruise ship terminal. Established in 1948, it is the older of the two and not a museum to be missed.
Comprising nine large vessels, both originals and replicas, it is not so much a museum in the ordinary sense, but a walking tour of ships and boats that convey much of the history of exploration and travel on—and under—the ocean’s surface.
But there are plenty of regular museum exhibits, too. On entry, visitors are directed onto the largest of the ships, the steam ferry Berkeley. According to the museum, the Victorian-era passenger ferry is most noteworthy for evacuating victims of the 1907 San Francisco earthquake. Her role at the museum is, in large part, to host exhibits. Among these are seemingly hundreds of ship models, ranging from a paper model of the museum’s reproduction
galleon San Salvador to the bathyscaphe Trieste to numerous 20th-century steel warships and carriers. (Plans for the paper model of the San Salvador can be downloaded for free from the museum’s website at sdmaritime.org/visit/the-ships/san-salvador/.) Also on board are a fully restored triple-expansion steam engine, a gift shop, event spaces, workshops, and a research library. The Berkeley is worth the price of admission by herself, with more than enough to occupy a visitor for a day. There is much more to see, however.
The schooner Californian is a replica of the Revenue Cutter C. W. Lawrence, which patrolled California’s coast during the Gold Rush. Today’s schooner was launched in 1984 as part of the celebration of that year’s Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She is available to explore on the pier at the museum, but she also offers a four-hour “tall-ship adventure cruise” around San Diego Bay. (Tickets for the tour are not included in admission.)
The Dolphin (AGSS-55), a deep-diving research vessel, was the last diesel-electric submarine operated by the U.S. Navy. Built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, the “Triple Nickel” commissioned in 1968 and remained in service until 2007. Her unclassified test-depth of 3,000 feet almost certainly understates her capabilities, and she claims records for the deepest dive by a submarine and the deepest launch of a torpedo. (Neither depth is listed by the museum.)
The San Salvador is “a highly accurate representation” of the Spanish ship commanded by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo that is believed to be the first European vessel to have explored San Diego Bay. The galleon is another of the museum’s boats that take passengers for local cruises. Other vessels include a Vietnam War–era Swift boat (the PCF-816), the steam yacht Medea, the merchant sailing ship Star of India, and a pilot boat the museum bills as the oldest wooden pilot boat in the United States.
What might be the best-known exhibit is “HMS Surprise.” Originally known as HMS Rose, she was built in Nova Scotia in the 1970s as a replica of a mid-18th-century 20-gun Royal Navy sixth-rate post ship of the same name. When 20th Century Fox began preparing combine three of Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin novels into a film adaptation titled Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, the movie company purchased the “frigate” and converted her to play the role of the fictional 28-gun Surprise in the movie. Sadly, the enthusiasm an O’Brian fan feels on first seeing the ship from a distance is rapidly tempered by its degraded condition. The paintwork is in terrible shape, and the exterior planking shows obvious signs of rot in places above the waterline. Still, the inside gives a powerful sense of the cramped quarters and almost impossible living conditions on board a 19th-century square-rigged man-of-war. The replica cannon, most carved from wood, and the hanging mess tables make for a sobering visit.
More uplifting is the “great cabin” in the stern, the captain’s quarters where many scenes from the movie were filmed. Exhibits and placards throughout the ship explain components of both the vessel and life on board.
Despite the ship’s poor material condition in part, any fan of O’Brian’s books,
C. S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series, or Philip K. Allan’s Alexander Clay stories will enjoy and learn from the opportunity to explore a vessel very like those known to the various novels’ protagonists.
The Maritime Museum of San Diego has much to offer individual visitors and families. A visitor might be tempted to try to squeeze in a quick trip after a day on board the Midway, but the Maritime Museum offers more than enough to stand on—and demand a visit of—its own.
