Visit the Museum of Yachting at IYRS This Summer

The Visitor’s Center in the mill building will host an exhibit on Henry David Thoreau’s book, “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”. First published in 1849, the book chronicles Thoreau’s journey with his brother John in a small boat they built in 1939. The story of this and other small-boat voyages—along with a well-researched, full-size replica of Thoreau’s boat, the Musketaquid— will enlighten visitors about small-boat building and cruising. The exhibit will also illustrate an important point: yachting, which is any boating done for pleasure, is accessible to all, and blue blazers and yacht club memberships are not required.

In the library, the museum will stage a new exhibit, Marine Navigation in the Pre-Electronic Era. For thousands of years sailors have ventured out onto the world’s oceans equipped only with their ingenuity and the tools they devised to help them find their way. These fine, beautiful navigation instruments are seen far less frequently today, having been replaced with electronic devices that rely on the complicated systems of modern boats. Visitors will learn about navigation through backstaffs, barometers, chronometers, compasses, octants and sextants, which are all works of art in themselves and used long before anyone had ever heard of a GPS or chart plotter.

Last year the meticulous restoration of the schooner yacht Coronet’s extant interior paneling and furniture began in a well-received living exhibit at the museum at Fort Adams State Park. This season, that work will continue in Restoration Hall on the Thames Street campus.

IYRS Summer Hours
IYRS Visitor Center - 10am to 5pm, Wednesday - Sunday
IYRS Library - 12pm to 5pm, Tuesday - Saturday
Restoration Hall - 10am to 5pm, Wednesday - Sunday

IYRS
449 Thames St., Newport, RI
401.848.5777, ext.227
www.iyrs.org
Free parking for IYRS visitors