MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. - The next crew of the H.L. Hunley may come out of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurant in Myrtle Beach.

Of course, it's not the real Confederate Hunley - the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in war. That one sank after it torpedoed the USS Housatonic off Charleston in 1864. The sub - crew and all - were recovered off Charleston Harbor in 2000. The real thing is being preserved and waiting for a museum to be built around it.

No, this is the H.L. Hunley Experience. It's a virtual museum tribute to the real thing that's opening Saturday at Broadway at the Beach entertainment and shopping complex next door to Margaritaville. And it all could be heading to a mall near you.

"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."

And they want plenty.

They expect nearly 180,000 people a year to visit the Hunley display, which is part of Burroughs and Chapin's new Adventures in Science, History and Nature building. A licensing deal with Friends of the Hunley costs Burroughs and Chapin $54,000 a year plus 20 percent of gift shop proceeds.

The group uses the money on the Hunley's $1 million annual conservation costs.

If successful, traveling Hunley museums exhibits could pop up elsewhere in the country at malls or high-traffic places, organizers say.

The exhibit has a big advantage over the real thing, now being studied at the Warren Lasch Conservation Lab in North Charleston. People can get inside this model and get a feel for it's confines and grasp the hand cranks that propelled the submarine.

Senior Hunley archaeologist Maria Jacobsen gave it a try, but said the model is much harder to crank than the actual sub. The real Hunley had a reduction gear that reduced the effort required, she says.

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Information from: The Post and Courier, http://www.charleston.net/