Thar she blows! Hull Maritime Museum resurfaces with a walk-in whale and a ‘monkey mermaid’

The £20m reboot shows off exhibits ranging from a giant whale skeleton to tiny ‘scrimshaws’ of carved bone to a very strange mermaid, all telling a gripping tale of a great seafaring city

The star attraction of Hull’s revamped and revitalised Maritime Museum is a colossal 40ft-long skeleton of an North Atlantic right whale, beached more than a century ago. The remains of this leviathan dominate an exhibition space scarcely large enough to contain its stupendous bulk. Children can crawl into its ribcage, like junior Jonahs, popping up in a clear plastic dome as digital images of swimming whales slowly unspool across the ceiling.

Docile, leisurely and extremely blubbery – which meant that harpooned carcasses conveniently floated, as well as yielding copious quantities of valuable oil – the North Atlantic right whale was hunted almost to extinction during the whaling era. Today, it’s estimated that there are fewer than 400 left.