In this room, we can comprehend the history of the “Cod Campaigns”. Portuguese cod fishing goes back to the end of the fifteenth century, with its origins intertwined with early Portuguese expeditions to Newfoundland.
Beyond the Gazela Primeiro, one of the few distant-water fishing ships from before 1900, the main focus of this room is the twentieth century. Through the models of the large cod fishing vessels such as the Argus and her sister ships Creola and Santa Maria Manuela, the adventure of cod line fishing is told. Trawlers, still active today in the Northern seas, are also present, as is the case with the João Corte Real.
Fisherman and sailors, the codfish fishermen spent most of the year at sea. Leaving from Lisbon at the end of March, the cod fishing vessels would go to the continental platform near Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and St. Pierre et Miquelon, where they would fish until the end of May, if the weather allowed it. At this point, the need for fishing bait, provisions, fuel and fresh water would force the fishing activity to stop, with the vessels departing for the waters of Greenland in mid-June. There, they would fish for cod again, with a good year representing about 800 tons of cod captured.
Being an industry with a symbolic importance in Portuguese society, the cod fishing industry was thoroughly reorganized in the 1930s by the Estado Novo regime. The new strategy affected not only cod fishing but any activities and people in relation to it.
The chapel from the support ship Gil Eanes became a permanent part of the Maritime Museum’s exhibition in 1993, after meticulous repair works.