Museum Ship

A museum ship, or sometimes 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, a use found mostly with the small number of museum ships that are still operational, i.e., capable of regular movement.

There are several hundred museum ships around the world, with around 175 of them organised in the Historic Naval Ships Association though there are also many non-naval museum ships as well, from general merchant ships to tugs and lightships. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum.