UKMHF 2025 Ken Hamilton from MSDS attended the annual meeting of the UK Maritime Heritage Forum in October, this year as guests of the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. The themes of the conference were ...

Latest @msdsmarine.bsky.social blog features a summary of the recent #UKMHF2025 conference, by your humble narrator

#MaritimeHeritage #MaritimeArchaeology
#CoastalHeritage

msdsmarine.com/ukmhf-2025/

A train seat next to the bit of the carriage between the windows, meaning there are no views.

That's it for #UKMHF2025. Am now on the train home, looking forward to some outstanding views...

#UKMHF2025 final talk is Paul Barnard and Nick Ball, Staying Afloat at Chatham, talking about how the Historic Dockyard has managed to stay an independently funded maritime museum for 40 years. They do not receive a government funding grant.

#UKMHF2025 Penultimate talk is Phil Robinson of VIC32: Operating a Heritage Steam Vessel on Sustainable Fuel. Climate impact aside, coal was £350/ton in 2004 and is currently £540/ton. Alternative fuels were tried in 2022. The best was compressed rapeseed waste.

#UKMHF2025 Fiona Greer and Lauren Henning from the Glenlee, a Glasgow built cargo ship talking about the impact of recent changes on running the ship and how to navigate those.
COVID resulted in a 33% drop in visitor numbers, while restrictions meant that maintenance dropped in lockdown.

#UKMHF2025, moving into the final session. Gary Momber of the Maritime Archaeological Trust talking about opportunities for a new maritime museum in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, building on MAT's work on the Yarmouth Roads wreck, Bouldnor Cliff and their experience of education and outreach.

#UKMHF2025 Emma Callaghan of the National Museum of the Royal Navy talking about the vulnerability of HMS #Trincomalee to #ClimateChange, notes that Historic England climate change guidance excludes movable heritage (including ships). Only guidance available is through #NationalHistoricShips..

#UKMHF2025 Ben Saunders of Wessex Archaeology is talking about the Sanday shipwreck and potential threats to wreck material.

Highlights climate change and heritage crime (theft) as major threats, arguably unsurprisingly, but it is important to say these things out loud so we can't ignore them.

#UKMHF2025 Jon Monasta of Beckett Rankine on the considerations of drying out large vessels.
Wood absorbs water and ships are designed to be in water. As they dry out, seams open and weight distribution becomes a real issue.
There are issues of museum ethics as well as engineering issues.

#UKMHF2025 Ian Murphy of National Museums Liverpool talking about the fate of the de Wadden.

'The resources of the organisation were not sufficient to do what we accessioned the de Wadden to do'

#UKMHF2025 day two starts with Louisa Blight of NMRN talking about the impacts of cyber attacks.

Is your Disaster Recovery Plan stored digitally? What do you do if you can't access it?
Where do you store your risk assessments, method statements and SOPs?

#UKMHF2025 Gill Osgerby and Robin Diaper with a sneaky preview of #Hull Maritime - the combination of a number of historic maritime projects in Hull centred on North End Shipyard, due to open in Spring 2026.
#SpurnLightship
#ArcticCorsair

#UKMHF2025 Mary Montagu-Scott talking about Buckler's Hard - a historic village with a 17th and 18th century shipyard on the river bank. There have been archaeological works on the slips, with more excavations planned.

#UKMHF2025 Chloe Allen and Alina Botezatu are talking about Trinity House in Leith (this is a guildhall for Masters and Mariners, and unconnected with Trinity House in London. #Lighthouses in Scotland are cared for by the Northern Lighthouse Board), and opening the house up through collaboration

#UKMHF2025 What is interesting is how central sustainability is to the maritime heritage sector. Even (especially?) coal fired vessels have sustainability at the centre of their mission statement.

For the avoidance of doubt, #UKMHF2025 is the 2025 meeting of the UK Maritime Heritage Forum in the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh

#UKMHF2025 Catriona Bourke talking about engaging people with maritime heritage and maritime work through the steam tug Daniel Adamson and the Maritime Heritage Maritime Futures project.

#UKMHF2025 Bob Crompton of Sunderland Maritime Heritage, talking about the MV Wearmouth. Mentions that many young people have a serious lack of experience with hand tools.

#UKMHF2025 Keira King from the Ballast Trust talking about archives - a much under promoted part of the historic environment.

#UKMHF2025 has Viktoria Johansson talking about Operation Safe Haven on #HMSUnicorn, and the complexities of trying to preserve such a rare and fragile vessel

#UKMHF2025 Next up is Ken Hamilton of @msdsmarine.bsky.social talking about #HeritageHarbours and the need for people to engage in the protection of their local area

#UKMHF2025 Next up is Ali Gellatly of the RRS Discovery discussing the benefits of conserving the ship as a museum object, rather than as a ship, with an emphasis on retaining historic fabric.

#UKMHF2025 starts with Matthew Bellhouse Moran on skills training at the Scottish Maritime Museum. If you have any doubt that these schemes work, I started in heritage on a similar scheme, 35 years ago.

#UKMHF2025 There is an expected fire alarm 'Obnoxiously loud and sarcastically long'...