ORP Błyskawica and Dar Pomorza

ORP Błyskawica and Dar Pomorza are two museum ships moored on the Pomeranian Quay (Nabrzeże Pomorskie) in the port of Gdynia, in the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland. Gdynia was built as a new seaport in the 1920s and 1930s to give the reborn Polish state access to the Baltic, and the two vessels represent the naval and maritime-training sides of that story.

ORP Błyskawica is a Grom-class destroyer built in Cowes, England, by J. Samuel White and commissioned in 1937. Before the war the Polish Navy sent it to Britain at the outbreak of fighting, and it served with the Royal Navy, escorting convoys in the Atlantic and taking part in operations in the Channel and the Norwegian campaign, as well as the defence of Cowes during an air raid in 1942. It has been a museum ship since 1976 and is one of the oldest preserved destroyers in the world still afloat in its original form. Visitors can go on deck and into parts of the interior, including the bridge, gun mounts, mess areas and engine spaces.

Dar Pomorza is a three-masted full-rigged sailing ship built in Hamburg in 1909 and acquired by Poland in 1929 for training cadets of the state maritime school. Between 1934 and 1935 it circumnavigated the globe, becoming a point of national pride. After many years of service as a training ship it became a museum ship in the 1980s, and visitors tour the deck, the cadet quarters, the navigation spaces and the display about the ship's voyages.

Both vessels are historic objects requiring continuing conservation, and works on hull, rigging and interiors have been carried out over many years. The setting on the quay, with views of the Gdynia seafront, provides a clear physical sense of the city's maritime character.