The collection includes Captain Cook’s travelling chest, the plaque that Matthew Flinders left at Memory Cove in 1802 to mourn the loss of seafarers, the trophy that Hilda Harvey won for the 1930 Swim Through the Port, and the boots that once belonged to ketch skipper Skug Cutler.

The museum holds very good collections of vintage swimwear, material from the Adelaide Steamship Company, from the Gulf Trip that offered tours from 1906 to 1955, and the grain trade which delivered wheat and barley to Europe by windjammers rounding Cape Horn in sail up until 1949.

[2][3] The Maritime Museum provides cruises on two vessels: the steam tug Yelta and the navy work boat Archie Badenoch.

Archie Badenoch was built by GMH's Birkenhead factory in 1942 for the Royal Australian Navy and was later used as South Australia's police rescue launch.

The oldest vessels in the collection are the timber ketch Annie Watt that was built in 1870 and the iron trader Nelcebee that was shipped from Scotland in parts and launched in Port Adelaide's Inner Harbor in 1883.