North Carolina Maritime Museum

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort preserves and interprets all aspects of the rich maritime heritage of the state through educational exhibits, programs and field trips. Exhibits take visitors from the dugout canoes of native Americans through the variety of sail rigs and hull designs of explorers, traders and privateers. They recall the brave traditions of the US Lifesaving Service and the African American heritage in that service and the menhaden fishery, tools of wooden boat builders and navigators, and repair shops of the earliest outboard engines. Artifacts from the shipwreck that is proving to be Blackbeard the pirate’s flagship, Queen Anne’s Revenge add the excitement of one of the most significant archeological finds of this century. In the museum’s Watercraft Center, visitors watch the construction and restoration of wooden boats. Educational programming includes the Cape Lookout Studies Program, Boatbuilding Skills Classes, Summer Science School for Children and the Junior Sailing Program as well as field trips to coastal habitats, kayaking, adult, family, and private sailing instruction, sliding seat rowing, fossil hunting trips, birding trips, marine life collecting cruises, wildflower and mushroom walks. Quarterly calendars of year around museum activities are available on request.