In just 20 years the Australian National Maritime Museum has developed an outstanding collection of more than 130,000 objects. These range in size from coat buttons to HMAS Vampire, a 119-metre-long former Royal Australian Navy destroyer. They include such diverse items as Indigenous bark paintings, a 19th-century ship's surgeon's kit, a beercan boat, swimsuits and surfboards.

In this book the museum's curators tell the stories of one hundred of the museum's treasures - items they have researched, acquired for the museum, documented and placed on display. These include the Endeavour replica, the fastest boat in the world (Spirit of Australia), the Saltwater Collection, a remarkable selection of bark paintings from Arnhem Land, and the Charlotte Medal from the First Fleet ship Charlotte, created by thief, forger and mutineer Thomas Barrett for the ship's surgeon.