Mayflower Ship in a Bottle – Large Display 23 cm

In September 1620, a small merchant vessel of around 180 tonnes set sail from Plymouth, England, carrying 102 passengers and a crew of approximately 30. The ship was the Mayflower, and her passengers — a group of English Separatists and other settlers seeking religious freedom and a new life — would become known to history as the Pilgrim Fathers.

The crossing took 66 days, battered by Atlantic storms that cracked one of the ship’s main beams and nearly turned the voyage back. On 11 November 1620, the Mayflower anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor, Massachusetts. Before going ashore, the passengers signed the Mayflower Compact — one of the earliest documents of self-governance in the New World, and a foundational text in American democratic history.

The Mayflower herself returned to England the following spring and faded from the historical record shortly after. But her voyage lives on as one of the most significant journeys in the history of the English-speaking world. This ship in a bottle captures her as she appeared on that crossing — sails full, flags flying, bound for a new world. Handcrafted in Ocean Relic Studio’s Zhoushan workshop, where artisans have been shaping maritime heritage into lasting objects since 1980.