On Saturday, June 8th, the outdoor exhibition of the Museum of Wooden Shipbuilding was opened. The exhibits of the museum presented to the public in the natural outside ambience testify the highest quality of the traditional wooden shipbuilding, as well as the methods of maintaining, the multiple uses that were designed for the ships, the sailing and the traditional materials. The newly designed outdoors exhibition of the Betina Shipbuilding Museum complements the permanent exhibition of the museum, by placing the objects into their original context. That allows the Betina-made gajeta, leut, pasara and many other boats located at the local port to be interpreted correctly, within their natural environment.
The museum keeps and saves the knowledge and the tradition of the wooden shipbuilding which has always been (and remains) a part of the great Croatian maritime heritage. That heritage is an important part of the European culture of shipbuilding and living by and of the sea.
Croatian culture Minister Nina Obuljen Koržinek opened the outdoor exhibition in Betina and said in her opening remarks that all of the successes of the museum can be attributed to those who work hard now to maintain and promote the craft (art?) of shipbuilding as a non-material cultural heritage. She added that the shipbuilders, as well as other woodworkers of the past, are equally as meritorious for that success, as they've never stopped transferring that knowledge and skills to the younger generations, up until today. The Minister added that the most worthy non-material worth to be accounted for is the strong bond of the local community with the shipbuilders and the shipowners. That bond is attested to by the name of the path between the port and the museum building itself, which has been called the "Shipbuilders' Path".
The museum can take pride of many accomplishments and awards it has won during the four years it's been open, including the latest one by the European Heritage/Europa Nostra award for Education Training and Awareness-raising, won recently.
The opening of the outdoor exhibition of the museum was held during the International 25th Forum of Mediterranean Maritime Heritage, organized by the Association of Mediterranean Maritime Museums (AMMM) in Betina Shipbuilding Museum this June.
