Investing in the Past

Yesterday, I became a trustee of a local maritime museum. I suspect that most of the other trustees either have money or know money, but there are a few of us who are in the maritime business in some way. I suspect it is their hope that we have some expertise or enthusiasm to bring to bear. I do have some ideas about what a maritime museum should be and do, but it's a little early to say whether they are in harmony with the views of my fellow trustees.

We spent most of the morning in an exercise to envision what the museum will be like in about five years. There was a lot of discussion of programs and campus and visitor experience and staff and budget and endowment, but surprisingly little about collection.

The museum has undertaken to raise funds for a giant sculpture - an evocation of the Wyoming, the largest wooden schooner ever built. It will be a full scale skeletal outline of the ship, over 400 feet long and 50 feet wide, with six towering masts and a huge jib boom. It will sit in pretty much the exact spot where the original was built and from which it was launched in 1909. I have mixed feelings about an evocation of a wooden ship made from steel (which it will be - and painted white as befits a skeleton). But, if nothing else, the new Wyoming will be a spectacular sight and a huge billboard for the musem, drawing visitors to its other attractions.