Exploring the Maine Maritime Museum

The Maine Maritime Museum in Bath sits on a 20-acre campus on the bank of the Kennebec River, on the ground where some of the largest wooden ships in American history were built and launched. Seven Bath residents founded it in 1962 as the Marine Research Society of Bath; it took its present name in 1975. It is not a dusty room of nautical artefacts. It is a historic shipyard you can walk through, a three-storey gallery building, a collection of small craft, and a cruise boat, all working on the same story.

Bath earned its nickname “City of Ships” honestly. The yards here built vessels that sailed the world’s oceans, from wooden schooners to the guided missile destroyers that General Dynamics Bath Iron Works still launches a short way up the river. BIW is the U.S. Navy’s lead yard for the Arleigh Burke class and the builder of the Zumwalt class. It is a secure defence yard and closed to the public, which is why the museum’s trolley and boat tours are the only realistic way to see it up close.

Before you go: the indoor Maritime History Building runs year round, 9:30am to 5pm daily. The shipyard, the Donnell House and the lobstering exhibit are seasonal, and the shipyard starts closing half an hour before the main building. Full admission and cruise prices are further down.

The Historic Shipyard Campus

Percy & Small Shipyard

The museum is built on the Percy & Small Shipyard, which the museum calls America’s only surviving shipyard site where large wooden sailing vessels were built. The exhibit interprets the yard’s working life from 1894 to 1920 and runs from inside the Maritime History Building out to four shipyard buildings, the wharves and the building slips.

What you’ll see:

• The mould loft, the oakum shed, the paint and treenail shop, and the mill and joiner shop, each using objects to explain a stage of wooden shipbuilding
• The building ways where the four, five and six-masted schooners took shape and went into the river
• The Kenneth D. Kramer Blacksmith Shop, a working forge built in 2014 on the site of the original Percy & Small blacksmith shop, which burned in 1913, with blacksmiths demonstrating the ironwork that outfitted the giant schooners
• The Watercraft Restoration Center, a working exhibit on the bottom level of the Boatshop, with a viewing platform over boats under restoration

Docent-guided shipyard tours run daily from Memorial Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day at 11am and 1pm. The shipyard is one of the parts of the campus the museum tags as open seasonally, and it begins closing at least 30 minutes before the main building, so walk the outdoor half first.

The museum began a refresh of the Percy & Small exhibits in 2025, remodelling the orientation wing in Sewall Hall first and rebuilding the interpretation in the historic buildings in a second phase. Its published goal was to finish in May 2026. If a particular building is the reason you are coming, check that page or call ahead.

The Wyoming Evocation

The centrepiece of the outdoor campus is a full-scale outline of the Wyoming, the six-masted schooner the museum describes as the largest wooden vessel built in the country. She was launched from this exact ground on 15 December 1909, carrying 300 tons of iron and steel in her wooden hull.

The museum calls the piece the Wyoming Evocation. The bow and stern went up in 2006 and the six metal masts were completed in 2013. The museum publishes the finished sculpture at 444 feet long, the largest in New England.

The experience: walking bow to stern gives you the scale in a way no ship model can. Longer than a football field, built of wood, by hand, right here. The museum’s shipyard refresh plan puts an updated audio tour along the hull and benches at every mast, so the intention is that you sit and listen rather than stride.

The museum does not publish an account of how the Wyoming was lost, and this page does not offer one. Earlier versions of this guide gave a shipwreck location and a crew count that the museum states nowhere; both have been removed rather than restated.

The Donnell House

The Donnell House is an 1892 shipyard owner’s home standing beside the yard. It belonged to William T. Donnell, the family patriarch whose fortune came from his own shipbuilding company, and the museum opened it to the public in 2005 after Mrs L. M. C. Smith donated it in 1981.

What you’ll see:

• Rooms set in period décor, with Eastlake furnishings and objects that belonged to the family
• Docents telling the story of the Donnells and of Bath’s Victorian social life
• What it was actually like to live, and entertain, next door to a working shipyard

Open: Memorial Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day, 11am to 4pm, and the museum adds “contingent on docent availability”. Ask at the admissions desk rather than assume.

The Grounds

The campus carries more than a dozen buildings across its 20 acres, on the riverbank with the working river in front of you. The south end has a public walking path and is the one part of the campus where pets are welcome, with a waste station provided. You are free to bring a picnic; the store sells a small number of snacks, and Flight Deck Pizza & Beer Garden, run by Brunswick’s Flight Deck Brewing, trades on the campus on Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 8pm in 2026, weather permitting.

Indoor Galleries and Exhibits

The three-storey, climate-controlled Maritime History Building went up in 1989 and holds the galleries, the collections store, the Nathan R. Lipfert Research Library, the shop and the admissions desk. This is the part of the museum that runs year round.

A Maritime History of Maine

The core exhibit, built around more than 240 objects. It works through earning a living on the coast, fishing, the coastal trades, wooden and steel shipbuilding, war, coastal travel and recreation, and includes the museum’s presentation on Bath Iron Works and its best model of a destroyer, alongside material on Maine’s lumber, lime, ice and granite exports.

Lobstering & The Maine Coast

The museum’s signature exhibit on the fishery, redesigned from the ground up and reopened on 26 July 2015 to tell the full trap-to-table story. It was built with the Maine Lobstermen’s Association, the University of Maine’s Darling Marine Center and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

What you’ll learn:

• Lobster biology and ecology
• A century of change in lobster boat design, shown through boats from the museum’s own working watercraft collection
• Traps, gear and how fishing methods evolved
• The shipping and processing that moves a perishable animal from Maine to the world
• The modern lobsterman’s overlapping roles as harvester, scientist and businessperson

Interactive elements: this is one of the two areas the museum names as hands-on. The part people remember is the buoy wall: lobstermen up and down the coast donated their buoys, and touch-screen kiosks give each owner’s name, home port and boat name, and in some cases a story from the water.

Note that the museum tags this exhibit “Permanent Exhibit Open Seasonally”, so confirm it is open before making a winter trip for it.

BIW: Building America’s Navy

Opened in 2018 and produced with Bath Iron Works, this is a high-tech look at the people, the processes and the ships of the yard next door, with interactive elements and a theatre showing a behind-the-scenes film of the shipbuilding process. It is also where the museum’s Bath Iron Works trolley and boat tour begins.

Into the Lantern: A Lighthouse Experience

A full-scale replication of the lantern room from the Cape Elizabeth Two Lights tower, holding the original second-order Fresnel lens from the east tower, with time-lapse projections of the Gulf of Maine that change with the weather and the seasons. It is worth knowing why this matters: the twin towers at Two Lights stand outside the state park and neither is open to the public, so a room like this is as close as most visitors will get to standing inside a working light. See our Maine lighthouse guide for the ones you can climb.

Snow Squall: An American Clipper

The last surviving example of an American clipper ship. Launched at Portland in 1851 and built, like all clippers, for speed on a sharp narrow hull under an enormous press of sail, Snow Squall ran aground near Cape Horn in 1864 and lay abandoned in the Falkland Islands for over a century. Archaeological expeditions through the 1980s recovered a 36-foot section of her bow, which is what is on view. The exhibit was renovated in 2021.

Historic Watercraft Collection

More than 140 Maine-built or Maine-related boats, including a rare antique birchbark canoe, bateaux and lobster boats. Only a small percentage is on display at any one time, and seasonally at that, spread across several buildings. Call ahead if a particular boat is the reason you are coming.

Rotating Exhibitions

The museum changes its special exhibits through the year. Recent ones have included Local Color: Painting the Coast of Maine, Upon That Isle in Maine on the work of children’s author and illustrator Chris Van Dusen, and Re|Sounding, which opened on 15 November 2025 and is on view through 2027. Current listings are on the museum’s exhibits page.

Boat Tours and River Cruises

Every trip runs from the museum’s own boat, Merrymeeting, a 56-foot motor vessel licensed for 50 passengers with a covered lower deck and an open upper deck. She was bought in 2016 as the Pied Piper and renamed for Merrymeeting Bay. Museum admission is included with every cruise ticket, and members take 20 percent off. Departures are at noon, 2pm and 3:30pm.

Kennebec River cruises, 2026 prices

Cruise	Runs	Adult	Ages 6-17	Under 6
1-Hour Lighthouse & Nature	Daily, mid-May to late October, noon and 2pm	$44	$21	$6
2-Hour Lighthouse & Nature	Mondays and Wednesdays, mid-May to late October, 3:30pm	$52	$27	$6
3-Hour Lighthouse & Nature	Tuesdays and Thursdays, mid-May to late September, 3:30pm	$58	$30	$6
Six Rivers of Merrymeeting Bay, 3 hours	Selected Sundays, 3:30pm	$58	$30	$6
Autumn Golden Hour, 2 hours	Selected days from September	$52	$27	$6
Lighthouse Lovers, 4 hours	Saturdays, 23 May to 29 August, 3:30pm	$66	$35	$6
Burnt Island Lighthouse Adventure, 4 hours	Selected Sundays, June to August	$80	$40	$10
Oyster Tasting, 2.5 hours	Selected Sundays through the season	$90	$65	$40

Two more sit outside that shape. Mini Mariners is a 30-minute cruise for the youngest visitors following the museum’s free monthly Story Time with Splash, on selected Tuesdays at 11am, $12 for adults and $6 for under-17s. The Fireworks Cruise on 4 July runs 8pm to 10pm for the Heritage Days fireworks, at $95 adult, $48 for ages 6 to 17 and $10 under 6.

What you’ll see: the 1-hour trip goes downriver past the museum’s own shipyard to Doubling Point Light and the Kennebec Range Lights, then back past Bath Iron Works and the destroyers taking shape. The 2-hour adds Squirrel Point, Perkins Island, Pond Island and Seguin Island, up to six lights in one run. The 3-hour swaps in the winding Sasanoa River. Lighthouse Lovers is the big one, up to ten lighthouses, adding the Cuckolds, Ram Island, Burnt Island and Hendricks Head. The Burnt Island trip puts you ashore for at least 30 minutes on a five-acre island with an 1857 keeper’s house and an 1821 rubble stone tower that is open for the visit. If Seguin has caught your eye from the water, we have a story about the island.

Booking: tickets are non-refundable except when the museum cancels for weather. Online sales close two hours before departure and in-person sales 20 minutes before; boarding starts 15 minutes before. The museum’s own warning is worth quoting: “The boat leaves on time, and we will leave without you.”

On board: cruises run in light rain, and the captain makes the call on severe weather on the day. Bring layers, because the temperature on the water moves around. There is a snack bar with Flight Deck beer, wine, soda and light snacks, and you may bring your own food and non-alcoholic drinks. Only service animals are allowed aboard.

Members can buy All You Can Cruise, a season pass giving unlimited cruises from 16 May to 25 October 2026. It is limited to current members aged 18 and over, excludes the Oyster Tasting and Fireworks cruises and private charters, and carries three blackout dates in July.

The Bath Iron Works Story: By Land & Sea

This is the museum’s signature offering and the one to book first. Bath Iron Works is a working General Dynamics naval yard, closed to the public, so this 2.5-hour combination tour is the only proper look at it. It starts inside the BIW: Building America’s Navy exhibit, moves outside to the City of Bath trolley for a narrated ride past the yard with a guide who covers its history, then drops you at the float to board Merrymeeting for a one-hour cruise and a close-up view of destroyers in the water.

When: 12:30pm. Select weekdays from mid-May, then Monday to Friday from 15 June to 23 October 2026. The museum’s own two pages disagree about the shoulder-season start, giving 18 May on the tour page and 19 May on the cruise page, so confirm the date directly if you are travelling in that first week.

Price: $65 for adults and $37 for children 17 and under, with the usual 20 percent member discount.

Access: the City of Bath trolley is wheelchair accessible and takes up to two wheelchairs, and golf cart rides run between the tour locations. Merrymeeting is wheelchair accessible, though the two heads on board are not.

For Families

Why Kids Love It

Children get in free. Everyone 17 and under is free through 2026, underwritten by Central Maine Power, which makes this one of the cheapest big days out on the Midcoast.

It’s hands-on: the museum names two areas built for it, the Tugboat Pilot House Replica and Lobstering & The Maine Coast, and staffs several demonstration areas with trained volunteers. Blacksmiths work the forge in the Kramer shop, and guides run a ship launching demonstration explaining how a finished hull was moved into the river.

The outdoor campus: 20 acres, more than a dozen buildings and the working river in front of you. Not a “don’t touch” environment.

The Wyoming: walking the 444-foot outline of a schooner makes an impression at any age.

Boat rides: Mini Mariners is a 30-minute cruise built for the youngest visitors, following the free monthly Story Time with Splash, the museum’s friendly sea monster.

Rain is not a disaster. The museum’s own answer is to bring a poncho, explore the shipyard outbuildings and go and find the docents in the Donnell House.

Age Recommendations

These are our impressions rather than the museum’s; it publishes no age guidance.

• Young children: the boats, the water, the open space and the story time
• School age: the lobstering interactives and the shipyard demonstrations
• Tweens and teens: the engineering, and the destroyers in the yard next door
• Mixed-age groups: the indoor and outdoor split lets people separate and regroup, and the two-day ticket takes the pressure off

Practical Information

Location

243 Washington Street, Bath, Maine 04530. Telephone (207) 443-1316.

The museum sits south of downtown Bath, on the river, on the same street that runs up through the town.

Getting There

The museum puts itself 1.2 miles off US Route 1 and about 20 minutes from Freeport, on the way to Boothbay Harbor and Camden. Bus parking is free and there is front door unloading for groups.

By water: the museum offers seasonal floating dock space for vessels up to 50 feet with a draft of up to nine feet, first come first served, and its Visiting Yachtsmen’s Building has restrooms and showers.

Parking: free, with space for RVs and larger vehicles in the south lot. Eleven accessible spaces, a drop-off area with benches near the main entrance, and a limited number of EV chargers. Overnight parking is prohibited.

Hours

Open 9:30am to 5pm daily, year round. Closed for the museum’s annual gala, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, and occasionally for weather. The shipyard begins closing at least 30 minutes before the Maritime History Building, which is the single most useful thing to know when planning the day.

The outdoor and historic buildings are the seasonal half. The museum tags the Percy & Small Shipyard exhibit, the Donnell House and Lobstering & The Maine Coast as open seasonally. Docent-guided shipyard tours run Memorial Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day at 11am and 1pm; the Donnell House opens 11am to 4pm across the same season, subject to a docent being available; golf cart rides across the campus run from mid-May to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

Cruises: mid-May to late October, with the season pass covering 16 May to 25 October 2026.

Admission

2026 prices:

• Adults $22
• Seniors $20
• Children 17 and under free through 2026, underwritten by Central Maine Power
• Members free
• Groups of 15 or more, arranged in advance, $18 per person

A ticket is good for two days within a week, and museum admission is included with a cruise ticket. The museum’s admission block still carries a line reading “Off season rates begin October 27, 2025” with no rates attached to it, so there is no winter price to quote here; ask when you book if you are visiting late in the year.

Other ways in: the museum takes part in Blue Star Museums, free for active military and their families, and Museums for All, free for up to four adults on a SNAP card. Council of American Maritime Museums cards are honoured, as are cards from the roughly 1,000 institutions in the North American Reciprocal Museum Association. New Hampshire Public Radio members get two-for-one once a year. Maine residents should borrow a day pass from their local library, which is what the museum itself recommends. It publishes no residency-based free admission, so anyone who has read that Bath or West Bath residents get in free has read it somewhere other than the museum.

Boat tours are priced separately, but a cruise ticket already includes museum admission, so there is no reason to buy both. If you know you want to get on the water, buy the cruise and the museum comes with it.

Time Needed

The museum publishes no suggested visit length, so treat any confident single figure with suspicion, including the ones this page used to carry. What it does publish is more useful for planning:

• The shipyard starts closing 30 minutes before the main building
• Shipyard tours leave at 11am and 1pm
• The Donnell House is open 11am to 4pm
• Cruises leave at noon, 2pm and 3:30pm

Fitting the galleries, a shipyard tour and a cruise into a single day means working around those four lines. And because a ticket lasts two days within a week, splitting the visit across two days costs nothing extra, which is the answer most families should take.

Tips for Visiting

Do the outdoor half first. The shipyard closes before the building does, and the galleries are still open when it shuts.

Book the Bath Iron Works tour ahead. It is the museum’s best product and it goes once a day.

Bring layers for the boat. The museum’s own advice, and the river is colder than the car park.

Wear comfortable shoes. The campus is large and part of the surface is gravel.

Combine with Bath. Downtown is a short run up Washington Street.

Accessibility

The campus is a mix of paved and gravel walkways, suitable for strollers and wheelchairs, with a few areas of substantial incline in the historic shipyard. A few historic buildings can be reached only by stairs. Wheelchairs are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and golf cart rides run in peak season, mid-May to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

On the water, Merrymeeting is wheelchair accessible but the two small heads on board are not, and reaching the boat means negotiating a ramp down to the float. The City of Bath trolley used on the Bath Iron Works tour is wheelchair accessible and takes up to two wheelchairs.

Pets

Dogs are not permitted inside the museum, and only service animals trained to perform a specific task may enter buildings. Pets and emotional support animals are welcome on the south end of the campus, which has a public walking path and a pet waste station, but not on cruises. The campus is smoke free.

Combining with Bath

The City of Ships

Bath rewards exploration on its own. The downtown offers:

• Historic architecture from the shipbuilding boom
• Local shops and restaurants
• The Chocolate Church Arts Center at 804 Washington Street, the same street as the museum, running concerts and theatre through the year
• Views of Bath Iron Works from public vantage points on land, though nothing to match the view from the water

Dining

There are restaurants within easy reach of the museum and more in the downtown. Fresh seafood, naturally, is well represented. On the campus itself, Flight Deck Pizza & Beer Garden opens Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 8pm in season, and picnics brought from home or from a Bath shop are explicitly welcome.

Why the Museum Matters

Understanding Maine

You cannot understand Maine without understanding its maritime heritage. The sea shaped the economy, the culture, the architecture, the food, the character of coastal communities. The Maine Maritime Museum tells that story comprehensively.

Living History

Maritime traditions continue in Maine, lobstering, fishing, boat building. The museum connects historical context to ongoing activities. What you learn here will deepen your experience at working waterfronts throughout the coast.

Preservation

The museum preserves irreplaceable objects and knowledge. The Percy & Small Shipyard, which the museum calls the only intact shipyard site in the United States that built large wooden sailing vessels, survives because the Smiths gave it to the museum in 1975 and the museum has held it since. The skills, the stories and the objects here would otherwise be gone.

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The Maine Maritime Museum asks a fundamental question: what does it mean for a place to be defined by the sea? In Bath, the answer involves centuries of shipbuilding, generations of mariners, evolving technologies from wooden schooners to steel destroyers, and communities shaped entirely by their relationship with the water. The museum doesn’t just display that history. It makes you feel it, standing where the great ships were built, watching the river that carried them to the ocean.