The H.L. Hunley Experience, a virtual museum honoring the world's first submarine to sink an enemy vessel, is set to open Saturday at Broadway at the Beach entertainment and shopping complex.

If it's a success -- and organizers expect it to be -- a traveling exhibit of Hunley museums could pop up elsewhere in the country.

Atlanta and Chicago are among possible sites. Malls or other fun-marketed, high-traffic destinations are the most likely locales.

"First we need to see who is attracted to the exhibit," said Patrick Dowling, spokesman for Burroughs and Chapin, the Myrtle Beach development company that partnered with Friends of the Hunley to create this satellite exhibit.

"Are we creating Hunley buffs or getting Hunley buffs?" Dowling asked, saying much marketing will need to be done. "We hope both."

Dowling's comments came as reporters were given an early tour of the 4,200-square-foot Hunley Experience on Thursday, two days before the grand opening.

The opening could be delayed, depending on what Hurricane Charley does. If emergency officials order an evacuation of the Grand Strand because of Charley or threatening winds, the grand opening will be moved to the first available date, a spokesman said.

The exhibit is easy to find: It's next to Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant and features a giant reproduction of the Hunley "splashing" out of the roof. Most of the displays re-create the story of the sub, its technology, crew and fatal mission to sink the USS Housatonic off Charleston in 1864. The real Hunley is being studied at the Warren Lasch Conservation Lab in North Charleston and won't go on local display for years.

Museum designers stayed away from debate about the Civil War. Slavery isn't mentioned, and the Confederate battle flag shows up just once, in a mural showing Confederate cavalry on the move.

"We didn't want to become arbiters of who won the Civil War and why," Dowling said.

After being shown a brief movie about the sub (taken largely from the Ted Turner production on the Hunley), visitors are escorted into the main Hunley room to see copies or period representations of some of the personal items carried by the sub's crew of eight. Items include pipes, knives and commander George Dixon's gold coin, pocket watch and ornate jewelry. The crew's actual belongings are being studied at the conservation lab.

One interactive display lets visitors climb inside a cut-away of the sub, sit at a station and turn the hand-crank that powered the propeller. At the rear of the model, the propeller is inside a sealed case of water, letting users feel some of the aquatic resistance that went into pushing the sub along.

Senior Hunley archaeologist Maria Jacobsen gave it a whirl, but said the model is much harder to crank than the actual sub, which was aided by a reduction gear. Still, she expected the museum to be a success if it can expose thousands more people a year to the Hunley. "This is whetting the appetite for what is to come."

Officials expect nearly 180,000 people a year to visit the Hunley display, part of Burroughs and Chapin's new Adventures in Science, History and Nature building. Many of those visitors will drive to see the real Hunley in North Charleston, Dowling predicted.

Under a licensing agreement, Burroughs and Chapin will pay Friends of the Hunley $54,000 a year plus 20 percent of gift shop proceeds. The money will help pay the costs of conserving the sub, which run more than $1 million a year.

The sub was recovered off Charleston Harbor in 2000.

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