Museum magic

Jane Phare tours the New Zealand Maritime Museum in Auckland.

There's a photo in Auckland's Maritime Museum that brings you up short - particularly if you're an America's Cup fan.

It shows that horrifying moment when, in a 2003 America's Cup race, Team New Zealand's rigging collapsed, sending the crew into a panic and sails crashing into the sea.
Shortly before we watched, open mouthed, from our living rooms as a crew member frantically bailed water out of NZL82's cockpit with a bucket as the boat was swamped by heavy seas.

Put under strain from tonnes of seawater, a supposedly unbreakable titanium tack ring gave way. From that moment, the race was over for Team New Zealand.

They are dramatic stories, moments in our history, that we can tell our children with the help of places like the Maritime Museum. Look, we can say, there is that tiny tack ring - on display at the museum - which caused that catastrophe.

There, too, is a photo of Australia 11 which bent like a banana, broke in half and, within a minute, sank during the 1995 Louis Vuitton Cup regatta leaving its crew in the water.

But there are triumphant stories too. Who could forget the thrill of Black Magic winning the America's Cup in San Diego in 1995, beating Dennis Conner's Stars and Stripes team by 5-0. Skippered by round-the-world sailor and adventurer Sir Peter Blake, NZL32 captured our hearts and our national pride. There in the museum, in all its gleaming glory, is Black Magic looming up for visitors to admire and remember.

Blake was a national hero, shot dead in December 2001 when armed Brazilian "water rats" boarded his vessel Seamaster on the Amazon River. It is fitting that the museum dedicates an entire section to him. On display are the lucky red socks he wore for each race. So, too, are drawings, letters, photographs and memories from his daughter Sarah-Jane.

Outside on the museum decks there is plenty to see: rows of heritage boats moored below, the ocean-going waka Haunui, the tiny steam tug Puke, and the sailing scow Ted Ashby which takes visitors out onto the harbour. The huge, old steam crane, Rapakai, is waiting to be restored but, in the meantime, visitors will be able to take an interactive virtual tour of the crane.

You can sail a virtual yacht race, design a yacht - mine sank - or go up on a ship's bridge and steer. It's harder than it looks; I nearly hit Bean Rock lighthouse.

Auckland model maker Wayne Spicer was busy making tiny gun carriages for a model of the 1760 gunship HMS Bellona in the model-making workshop. Not far away the museum's vessels maintenance manager, Kevin Smith, was overseeing the restoration of Nautilus, a WW1 hospital launch that transferred wounded soldiers to hospital ships at Alexandria in Egypt.

The maritime museum is a perfect place to bring kids. If you're an Auckland resident (bring some proof) you get in free, there's a sandpit and places to eat a picnic lunch. Children can get up close to exhibits; there's not much in glass cases or roped off. The shop sells mermaid costumes and, best of all, at noon every day a canon is hauled outside - curiously, someone stole the last canon so now it's put away each day - and long-time staff member Brian Butler lights the gunpowder. The canon is packed full of newspaper so there's lots of noise, newspaper confetti and smoke.

New Zealand Maritime Museum, corner Quay and Hobson Sts, Viaduct Harbour, Auckland
open every day, except Christmas, 10am to 5pm. Final entry at 4pm. Auckland residents are free. Ask at the museum shop about discount vouchers for the Downtown car park.