The museum was opened on 28th June 1978. Its creation had been an ambition of the owner, Martin Woodward, since 1968, when he first started salvage diving on shipwrecks around the Isle of Wight. Martin has been a professional diver since the late 1960's, many years of which were spent deep diving in the North Sea and Middle East oilfields. However, his main interest has always been maritime history and identification of previously uncharted wrecks.