Exhibits
Some Burdensome: Big Ships, Big Cargoes
Celebrating the December 15, 2009 centennial of the launch of the largest wooden ship ever built - the six-mast schooner WYOMING, a bulk coal carrier built at Bath’s Percy & Small shipyard (the site now preserved and interpreted by Maine Maritime Museum) - Some Burdensome will pay homage to the big ones, past and present, and the folks that filled them. From shovels, and coal grabs to standardized steel containers and wind turbine blades, it’s all about humping the goods, and moving big weight. And from Noah’s Ark to the Ebba Maersk, the way to move big cargo is to float it.
Maine’s commerce, both past and present, has always pivoted on successful solutions to cargo export and import, and is looking ahead at an ever-increasing international role. While global manufacturing is ever more dependent on the economies of scale offered by maritime shipping, rising transport costs are bringing new looks at the size and shape of future ocean carriers; even sails are being re-visited.
Maine is once again being seen not as the end of the highway, but rather as a stepping off point to the rest of the world. While the technologies may have changed, Maine shipbuilders and shippers of a hundred years ago would only smile knowingly and say, “Is there any other way?”