A ship replica is a reconstruction of a no longer existing ship. Replicas can range from authentically reconstructed, fully seaworthy ships, to ships of modern construction that give an impression of a historic vessel. Some replicas may not even be seaworthy, but built for other educational or entertainment purposes.
Reasons to build a replica include historic research into shipbuilding, national pride, exposition at a museum or entertainment (e.g., for a TV series), and/or education programs for the unemployed. For example, see the project to build a replica of the Continental brigAndrew Doria.[1] Apart from building a genuine replica of the ship, sometimes the construction materials, tools and methods can also copied from the ships' original era, as is the case with the replica of Batavia in Lelystad and the ship of the line replica Delft[2] in Rotterdam (Delfshaven).
The term "replica" in this context does not normally include scale models. The term museum ship is used for an old ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public.
A ship replica may also be a generic replica, one that represents a certain type of ship rather than a particular historic example, like Kamper Kogge, replicating the Cogs that were used extensively in Northern Europe by the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages, but where there is little knowledge of specific ships.
Some generic type replicas such as Thor Heyerdahl's Ra II, qualify as true replicas as these ships were built to investigate the craft and or culture of the original era. That they do not replicate a specific vessel is mainly because no details of such a specific vessel are available.
Some other ships that are modeled after ships of a certain type or era (and are in that sense replicas) do not qualify as true replicas. Some ships may be borderline cases, such as Kanrin Maru, which is actually twice the size of the original, but built following the plans of the original.
Replicas can be temporary, cheap and very simple, such as the replica of a Viking ship that was burnt at the Leixlip Festival.
Notable historic type ships that are not replicas include:
USSConstitution (1795) is strictly speaking not a replica but the original vessel. However, most of the ship's timber has been replaced over time, with only 10-15% of the original remaining.[3] This is a modern version of the philosopher's dilemma concerning replica versus original; known as the Ship of Theseus dilemma.
HMSVictory (1765) is still the original vessel, although unlike Constitution, she is in dry dock and does not sail. She has also been heavily restored, with only 10-15% of her original timber remaining.[4]
Mircea, which is an almost exact copy of Gorch Fock. Mircea was built as a copy because Gorch Fock was a very successful ship. Thus Mircea was not built as a replica per se, but as a copy for other reasons (i.e. to perform economically, in this case as a training vessel).
Stad Amsterdam is a generic clipper type ship combining the best qualities of clippers of the past with modern materials and technologies.
Another ambiguous case subject to the Ship of Theseus dilemma is Niagara. The original was sunk in 1820 for preservation, and the ship has been rebuilt three times since. The third reconstruction was considerably more extensive, and the only parts from the original which were retained are non-structural, leading many authorities to classify her as a replica, rather than a reconstructed original.
Notable ship replicas
Some sailing ship replicas with their home port; and key information of the original (many articles are about the original ship):
Proposed (in 2013) full-size sailing replica, to be built in a dedicated museum on the site of old Deptford Dockyard where the original was built.[23][24]
Replica of a large trimaran paraw completed in 2014. Currently used for island-hopping tours from El Nido to Coron, Palawan by the Tao Philippines organization.
One of several replicas of Austronesianlashed-lug plank boats from Butuan. Sailed throughout Southeast Asia in 2009 along with Masawa Hong Butuan and Sama Tawi-Tawi.
One of several replicas of Austronesianlashed-lug plank boats from Butuan. Sailed throughout Southeast Asia in 2009 along with Diwata ng Lahi and Sama Tawi-Tawi.
One of several replicas of Austronesianlashed-lug plank boats from Butuan. Sailed throughout Southeast Asia in 2009 along with Diwata ng Lahi and Masawa Hong Butuan.
A replica of built by the British explorer Tim Severin and sailed in the Indonesian archipelago as chronicled in his book The Spice Islands Voyage (1997)
A double-hulled voyaging canoe built in Kawaihae, Hawaii by members of Na Kalai Waʻa Moku o Hawaiʻi and ʻOhana Wa'a members from throughout the Pacific and abroad as a gift and tribute to Satawalese navigator Mau Piailug
A performance-accurate waʻa kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging canoe. Launched on 8 March 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society, she is best known for her 1976 Hawaiʻi to Tahiti voyage completed with exclusively Polynesian navigation techniques.
Naga Pelangi (meaning "rainbow dragon") is a wooden junk rigged schooner of the Malay pinas type built from 2004 to 2009 in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. Finished in 2010, it is operated as a charter vessel in South East Asia. It is built entirely using traditional Austronesian lashed-lug techniques.
Jewel of Muscat; Omani 9th-century sailing ship built to retrace the route of the original ship from Oman to Singapore.
Ictineu II; Barcelona, Spain; a replica of the first mechanically powered steam driven submarine.
The Hjortspring Boat is replica of a Danish Iron Age rowing boat.[29]
At the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, replicas of Viking ships are built.
Various projects for building replicas of the ill-fated RMSTitanic have been proposed over the years. The first Titanic replica to actually commence construction is being built by Chinese firm Seven Star Energy Investment; by summer 2021, the hull is essentially complete and construction of the superstructure is beginning. The ship will not sail on any ocean, but be permanently docked on a river in Sichuan province to function as the main attraction for the Romandisea Seven Star International Cultural Tourism Resort.[30][31][32]
Various "replicas" of Noah's Ark have been built. Whether they are properly regarded as "replicas" depends on whether one takes the Biblical flood story as mythology or fact. Since the Biblical description of the vessel is very brief beyond the basic measures, the exact design of any "replica" is necessarily conjectural.
Star of India is an iron-hulled sailing ship, built in 1863 in Ramsey, Isle of Man as the full-rigged ship Euterpe. After a career sailing from Great Britain to India and New Zealand, she was renamed, re-rigged as a barque, and became a salmon hauler on the Alaska to California route. Retired in 1926, she was restored as a seaworthy museum ship in 1962–3 and home-ported at the Maritime Museum of San Diego in San Diego, California. She is the oldest ship still sailing regularly and also the oldest iron-hulled merchant ship still afloat. The ship is both a California Historical Landmark and United States National Historic Landmark.
Viking ships were marine vessels of unique structure, used in Scandinavia from the Viking Age throughout the Middle Ages. The boat-types were quite varied, depending on what the ship was intended for, but they were generally characterized as being slender and flexible boats, with symmetrical ends with true keel. They were clinker built, which is the overlapping of planks riveted together. Some might have had a dragon's head or other circular object protruding from the bow and stern for design, although this is only inferred from historical sources. Viking ships were used both for military purposes and for long-distance trade, exploration and colonization.
USS Pampanito (SS-383/AGSS-383), a Balao-class submarine, is a United States Navy ship, the third named for the pompano fish. She completed six war patrols from 1944 to 1945 and served as a United States Naval Reserve training ship from 1960 to 1971. She is now a National Historic Landmark, preserved as a memorial and museum ship in the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association located at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California.
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 small number of museum ships that are still operational and thus capable of regular movement.
The Gokstad ship is a 9th-century Viking ship found in a burial mound at Gokstad in Sandar, Sandefjord, Vestfold, Norway. It is displayed at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway. It is the largest preserved Viking ship in Norway.
Kanrin Maru(咸臨丸, Unyielding) was Japan's first sail and screw-driven steam corvette. She was ordered in 1853 from the Netherlands, the only Western country with which Japan had diplomatic relations throughout its period of sakoku (seclusion), by the shōgun's government, the Bakufu. She was delivered on September 21, 1857, by Lt. Willem Huyssen van Kattendijke of the Dutch navy. The ship was used at the newly established Naval School of Nagasaki in order to build up knowledge of Western warship technology.
A sewn boat is a type of wooden boat which is clinker built with its planks sewn, stitched, tied, or bound together with tendons or flexible wood, such as roots and willow branches. Sewn boat construction techniques were used in many parts of the world prior to the development of metal fasteners, and continued to be used long after that time for small boats to reduce construction costs where metal fasteners were too expensive.
The Hjortspring boat is a vessel designed as a large canoe, from the Scandinavian Pre-Roman Iron Age. It was built circa 400–300 BC. The hull and remains were rediscovered and excavated in 1921–1922 from the bog of Hjortspring Mose on the island of Als in Sønderjylland, southern Denmark. The boat is the oldest find of a wooden plank ship in Scandinavia and it closely resembles the thousands of petroglyph images of Nordic Bronze Age ships found throughout Scandinavia. The vessel is a clinker-built wooden boat of more than 19 metres length overall, 13.6 metres long inside, and 2 metres wide. Ten thwarts that could have served as seats, span the boat with room for two persons each; this suggests space for a crew of at least 20 who propelled the boat with paddles. The boat would have weighed an estimated 530 kilograms, making it easily portable by its crew.
Kankō Maru was Japan's first steam-powered warship. It was presented to the Tokugawa shogunate ruling Japan during the Bakumatsu period as a gift from King William III of the Netherlands to assist Janus Henricus Donker Curtius, head of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij in Japan in his efforts to establish formal diplomatic relations and the opening of Japanese ports to Dutch merchant vessels.
Viking is a four-masted steel barque, built in 1906 by Burmeister & Wain in Copenhagen, Denmark. She is reported to be the biggest sailing ship ever built in Scandinavia. In the 21st century her sailing days have drawn to a close, and she is now moored as a botel in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Viking ship replicas are one of the more common types of ship replica. Viking, the first Viking ship replica, was built by the Rødsverven shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway. In 1893 it sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to Chicago in the United States for the World's Columbian Exposition. Formerly located in Lincoln Park, Chicago, Illinois, the Viking is currently undergoing conservation in Geneva, Illinois, United States.
The Tamkang University Maritime Museum is a museum on sea navigation located on the campus of Tamkang University in Tamsui District, New Taipei City in Taiwan. The museum is located in a ship-like formed building which formerly served as a training center for future sailors on trading ships.
The National Maritime Museum, Cornwall is located in a harbourside building at Falmouth in Cornwall, England. The building was designed by architect M. J. Long, following an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions.
The Naniwa Maru (浪華丸) is a replica ship of a typical Japanese trader from the Edo period (1603-1868) known as a higaki kaisen. It was built as the main exhibit for the Osaka Maritime Museum, with academic interest which also encouraged sea based testing until it was transferred into the newly built museum.
The motor yacht Titanic is a 1,900-tonne yacht that was formerly the Japanese Government's research/fishing vessel Toko Maru and later Kelso. In March 2010, she developed a leak while sailing in the Caribbean. Her rescue by the United States Coast Guard was co-ordinated from the United Kingdom.
Ivlia (bireme) is a modern reconstruction of an ancient Greek rowing warship (galley) with oars at two levels and is an example of experimental archaeology. Between 1989 and 1994, this vessel undertook six international historical and geographical expeditions tracing the route of the ancient seafarers.
The Maritime Museum in Stockholm is responsible for the listing of historic ships in Sweden. The purpose of the listing is to encourage and support owners of historic ships and boats to preserve and take care of their vessels. The listing does not confer any legal protection on the vessels or obligations on their owners but entitles them to some privileges.
The Brest International Maritime Festival is a gathering of traditional boats from around the world, taking place for a week every four years in the city of Brest in France.
↑ Starting from Odesa (Ukraine) in 1989, Ivlia followed the routes of the ancient mariners on the Black Sea and the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic, covering more than 3.000 nautical miles in six expedition seasons and visiting over 50 European ports, finally sailing up the river Seine to reach Paris.
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