Ships of August Crabtree at Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA

The highlight of any trip to the Mariner's Museum in Newport News, VA is the collection of sixteen miniature ships all handcrafted by August Crabtree (1905-. In his detailed renderings of ships that cover the entire rich history of shipbuilding, Crabtree employed scaled down versions of the same techniques used by the original shipbuilders and constructed breathtakingly accurate versions of significant ships. Visitors young and old will be transported back in time by Crabtree's perfectly rendered ships, accurate down to the tiniest detail, and the glimpses those same details offer of life aboard ship. What might it have been like to sail in an ancient Roman merchant vessel making steady progress across the Mediterranian, the hot winds of north Africa warming the skin? Or to be a reluctant, recently pressed, English seaman whose ship, a 50-gun vessel, is about to do battle with a far larger French ship during the Napoleonic wars? The gallery itself is an ideal fit to the work itself. The arrangement of ships and the lighting of the space display the enormity of Crabtree's achievement to remarkable effect.

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