The Scottish Maritime Museum is ditching a long-held custom of referring to ships as "she."
The move has been prompted after signs were twice defaced.
The gender-neutral policy will be phased in with new signs this year.
The words "she" and "her" were scratched out on two separate occasions.
Director David Mann told The Scotsman: “The Scottish Maritime Museum is a charity, which works hard to preserve our country’s maritime heritage for everyone to enjoy.
“For the second time this year, the museum has been targeted by a vandal, who has destroyed one of the interpretation signs which follow the universally adopted and centuries-old maritime tradition of referring to vessels as female."
