Namibia Maritime Museum

Namibia Maritime Museum The Namibia Maritime Museum (NMM), officially opened on 11 September 2024 by President Dr. Nangolo Mbumba, is located in the Lüderitz Old Power Station (LOPS).

Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading maritime museum, showcasing Namibia’s rich seafaring, fishing, conservation and offshore heritage through unique exhibits, ship models, maps and artifacts. As the largest maritime museum in Sub-Saharan Africa, it showcases Namibia’s rich maritime heritage through exhibitions on early seafaring, the fishing industry, marine conservation, and the country’s role in the gl

obal maritime economy. The museum features displays on maritime history, seabed mining, sea trading, and offshore oil and gas exploration. Its diverse collection includes ship models, antique maps, navigational instruments, fishing gear, seashells, postal stamps, and maritime coins, among others. We welcome you to explore the stories of Namibia's connection to the sea.

In 1749, nobody had finished arguing about what the sky was doing.Copernicus put the sun at the centre. Ptolemy put the ...
10/08/2026

In 1749, nobody had finished arguing about what the sky was doing.

Copernicus put the sun at the centre. Ptolemy put the Earth. Tycho Brahe tried to keep both. This engraving prints all four rival systems on one sheet, two centuries after the argument began.

📍Upper Deck Two: Maps, Charts and Cartography

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

Right Reverend Patrick Djuulume, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Namibia, together with the Venerable Phillip Hainane,...
10/08/2026

Right Reverend Patrick Djuulume, Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Namibia, together with the Venerable Phillip Hainane, rector of St. Peter's in Lüderitz, paid a visit to the Namibia Maritime Museum yesterday, guided by our curator, Eino Ngesheya, through the exhibits.

Come discover that same story for yourself at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz.

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

Opening Hours:

Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
Sat/Sun/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

She was launched in Belfast in 1947 by a woman standing 9,700 km away in South Africa.R.M.S. Pretoria Castle, 28,705 ton...
09/08/2026

She was launched in Belfast in 1947 by a woman standing 9,700 km away in South Africa.

R.M.S. Pretoria Castle, 28,705 tons, Southampton to Cape Town. Ouma Smuts was too frail to travel to the shipyard, so engineers built her a remote link. She pressed a button at home in the Transvaal and the hull slid into Belfast Lough.

The ship entered service in July 1948 on the Southampton to Cape Town run. She carried 755 passengers and a crew of 400, sailed through lines of 260 warships at the Coronation Fleet Review in 1953, was renamed S.A. Oranje in 1966, and was broken up in 1975.

Note: The colours in this print have faded over time. Union-Castle vessels wore a lavender grey hull beneath a vermilion funnel with a black top. The funnel now reads yellow because the magenta dye layer in prints of this period breaks down first, leaving the yellow beneath.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

The internet has spent the last month rediscovering a 24-year-old book about salt. We have had a whole section on it for...
08/08/2026

The internet has spent the last month rediscovering a 24-year-old book about salt.

We have had a whole section on it for a while.

Namibia is the largest producer of solar sea salt in sub-Saharan Africa. 100 million cubic metres of seawater into 5,000 hectares of ponds, the sun does the rest, and over a million tonnes come out the other end.

The water comes off the Benguela current, one of the cleanest sources on earth.

The only rock we eat, and this coast is very good at making it.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

The Rose of Winds. The anchor. The ship's mast. The lighthouse.The Museum Theme Park brings Namibia's maritime heritage ...
07/08/2026

The Rose of Winds. The anchor. The ship's mast. The lighthouse.

The Museum Theme Park brings Namibia's maritime heritage to life in the open air, and has become one of the most photographed attractions at the Lüderitz Waterfront.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

This is not a bone. Sharks do not have any.The whole skeleton of a shark, jaw included, is cartilage. The same flexible ...
05/08/2026

This is not a bone. Sharks do not have any.

The whole skeleton of a shark, jaw included, is cartilage. The same flexible tissue as the tip of your nose. It is lighter than bone, which matters for an animal with no swim bladder to hold it up, and it bends under load instead of snapping.

Look at the teeth, then look behind them. The front row is not the only one. Rank after rank lies flat beneath the gum, rotating forward as the row ahead wears down and drops away. A shark can shed and replace tens of thousands of teeth in a lifetime.

The teeth are the exception to the cartilage. They are the hardest thing the animal grows, and usually the only part that outlasts it. This jaw is what was left.

It belonged to a requiem shark, a bronze whaler, the species that follows the sardine shoals along the southern African coast.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

For nine years, the most powerful fleet in the South China Sea answered to a woman.Zheng Yi Sao commanded hundreds of ju...
03/08/2026

For nine years, the most powerful fleet in the South China Sea answered to a woman.

Zheng Yi Sao commanded hundreds of junks and tens of thousands of crew, outlasting Qing, Portuguese and British attempts to stop her. In 1810 she walked away on terms she set herself. The coastal villages she preyed on remembered her rather differently, and a museum keeps both memories side by side.

Ships like this one sailed those waters between roughly 1790 and 1910, working out of the coasts and islands of Guangxi and Fujian.

Look at the sails. Bamboo battens hold them rigid, so a single crew member could reef them in seconds. That one detail is why a junk could turn inside a European ship and be gone before it was caught.

What marks this vessel as a pirate junk rather than a merchant is the armament: ten to twelve cannon, mostly carronades, aimed at ships that could not shoot back. Though the line was never clean. The same hull carried salt in one season and stolen cargo in the next.

Image: History of Pirates of all Nations, 1836.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

31/07/2026

Welcome to the Namibia Maritime Museum, where Namibia’s ocean stories come to life.

Explore five floors of maritime history, marine life and discovery in the historic Lüderitz Old Power Station. A journey through Namibia’s maritime past, present and future.

The Zeila — From Trawler to Coastal LandmarkBuilt in 1975, the Zeila operated as a fishing trawler before being decommis...
29/07/2026

The Zeila — From Trawler to Coastal Landmark

Built in 1975, the Zeila operated as a fishing trawler before being decommissioned and sold for scrap. On 25 August 2008, its towline broke during rough seas while the vessel was being transported from Walvis Bay to India.

Without engine power, the Zeila drifted north and ran aground about 14 km south of Henties Bay. Both crew members were safely rescued.

Today, the wreck is a well-known coastal landmark and an important roosting site for Cape Cormorants.

at the Namibia Maritime Museum in Lüderitz

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

A warm welcome to the senior delegation from the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, led by Mr Peter Denk, who visited th...
28/07/2026

A warm welcome to the senior delegation from the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation, led by Mr Peter Denk, who visited the Namibia Maritime Museum today, 28 July 2026.

The visit highlights the growing appeal of the NMM in telling the stories of the ocean and as a tourism destination.

📍 Namibia Maritime Museum, Lüderitz Old Power Station

Entrance Tickets Available Here: www.webtickets.com.na/maritimemuseum

🕒 Opening Hours:
- Mon-Fri: 09:30 – 18:30
- Sat/Public Holidays: 09:30 – 13:30

̈deritz

Address

Diaz Street (Lüderitz Old Power Station)
Lüderitz
9000

Opening Hours

Monday 09:30 - 18:30
Tuesday 09:30 - 18:30
Wednesday 09:30 - 18:30
Thursday 09:30 - 18:30
Friday 09:30 - 18:30
Saturday 09:30 - 13:30

Telephone

+264837837320

Website

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