The museum houses Peter Tamm's collection of model ships, construction plans, uniforms, and maritime art, amounting to over 40,000 items and more than one million photographs.

[4] In 2004 the Hamburg Parliament approved a grant for a new museum in the HafenCity quarter unanimously, with an abstention from voting by the GAL party parliamentary group.

Mirjana Marcovic (MRLV Architekten) planned the renovations and received an award from the Architekten- und Ingenieurverein Hamburg.

[3][4] Further the exhibition consists of paintings with a naval or marine theme, model ships made of whale bones or ivory, weapons, uniforms, and decorations.

[13] Also the reproduction of the James Caird, the small lifeboat of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, used by the German explorer Arved Fuchs in a relived journey in 2000,[15] is displayed.

[16] The museum's archive also possesses 47 original letters of Lord Horatio Nelson, famous for his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, and 15,000 cruise ship menus.

[9] In 2008 the museum participated for the first time in the Tag des offenen Denkmals, an annual, nationwide event sponsored by the Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, that opens cultural heritage sites to the public.