New Zealand Maritime Museum

The New Zealand Maritime Museum, Hui Te Anaui A Tangaroa, is a maritime museum with exhibitions spanning New Zealand’s maritime history, from the earliest Polynesian explorers and settlers to the modern-day triumphs at America’s Cup. Its Maori name is ‘Te Huiteanaui-A-Tangaroa,’ which means, holder of the treasures of Tangaroa, the Sea God.

Among the many historical and cultural objects in the New Zealand Maritime Museum, the following are highlights.

Breeze Brigantine

The Breeze Brigantine is a traditional wooden sailing ship similar to the ships used for New Zealand’s coastal trades in the 1800s. A brigantine is a two-masted sailing vessel, and the Breeze has a square-rigged foremast and fore-and-aft rigged mainmast. Recreated as a replica coastal trader built in the traditions of 19th-century shipwrighting techniques, materials, and construction, and her brigantine rig spreads up to 11 sails.

Breeze sailed to Mururoa to protest French nuclear testing after the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior which had been sunk in Auckland harbor in 1985. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior was a bombing operation by the French foreign intelligence services. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand, before it made its way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa.

Breeze Brigantine

Exhibit: Breeze Brigantine
Materials: Wood
Launched: 1981
Origin: New Zealand
Lengths: 60 ft; 18.3m
Beam: 16,5ft; 5.03 m
Depth: 5.3 ft; 1.61m
Sail Area: 2420 sq ft; 225 sq m
Tonnage: 31 grt
Museum: New Zealand Maritime Museum

New Zealand Maritime Museum

Museums: New Zealand Maritime Museum
Maori Name: Hui Te Anaui A Tangaroa (holder of the treasures of Tangaroa, the Sea God.)
City: Auckland
Country: New Zealand
Inaugurated: 1993
Type Museum: Maritime history
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Address: Corner Quay Street and Hobson Street

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“As man disappears from sight, the land remains.”
– Maori Proverb

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Photo Credit: By Ingolfson at English Wikipedia (Original text: Uploader.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons