While the museum remains temporarily closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, the public can still enjoy a virtual experience of what the Nantucket Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum has to offer. Enjoy exhibits and artifacts ranging from the Breeches Buoy, an ingenious shore-to-ship rescue device akin to a zip line today, or hear the story of the Wreck of the W.F. Marshall in which all lives were saved including that of a very large Newfoundland dog.
The museum is on the Lingar network, a mobile application for cultural attractions. Lingar lets visitors unlock interpretive text, audio, video, and augmented reality on smartphones and tablets. Download the free Lingar app, create a login and, once signed in, select the venue: Nantucket Shipwreck & Lifesaving Museum. Until the museum reopens, one can choose the menu icon (upper left three bars) to experience our selected exhibits from home. Most of the exhibits come with audio and video explanations.
Museum Manager Chuck Allard commented “What’s especially exciting about this new way of presenting exhibits and hearing the stories of rescues is that visitors now have the option to dig deeper or move on. If you want to learn more about an incident or an object, right then and there you can check it out by audio, video, or additional text.”
This virtual museum experience is the newest pivot Nantucket’s Shipwreck and Lifesaving Museum has made during the pandemic. In early April, Evan Schwanfelder, Manager of Maritime Education, created the podcast “Time and Tide.” Listeners can hear some of the most dramatic stories from Nantucket’s seafaring past: riveting tales that rise from the depths of despair to the peak of human hope and salvation. There are seven episodes so far, including the 1892 rescue of The Wreck of the H.P. Kirkham, Life on a Nantucket Lightship in the 19th Century, The Wreck of the W.F. Marshall, The Great Gale of 1879, and more.
Schwanfelder commented “I feel these are incredibly inspirational narratives with a very human element that spans the spectrum of emotion. My hope is that these stories will go out to Nantucket and beyond, and that they might strike an emotional chord which resonates with all those who listen.”
Listen to the podcast at timeandtidenantucket.com