FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 15, 2007
CONTACT: Molly Dannenmaier
Director of Marketing and Public Relations,
409-765-7834

Seamanship Training Onboard the Restored 1877 ELISSA, the Official Tall Ship of Texas, Continues Saturday, August 25, Free of Charge

New Volunteer Crew Members Still Being Accepted up through Next Session

In July and early August, the Texas Seaport Museum held its first three sessions of seamanship training on ELISSA, Galveston’s famous historic tall ship. Saturday, August 25, at 9 a.m., the door is still open for new recruits, as the volunteer seamanship program continues its new season of seamanship training. Anybody 16 or older (there is no upper age limit) is welcome to join the program. There is no charge for participation.

Prospective recruit Anja Schulz (right foreground) tries her hand hauling one of the hundreds of lines that control ELISSA's sailing rig at the first Seamanship Training Session of the 2007-2008 season. Showing her the ropes are Ken Sturges, left, and Robert Heid, center, both veteran Elissa volunteer crewmen and seamanship instructors. Schulz joined more than 100 interested newcomers at an orientation program on Saturday, July 21, to learn about Texas Seaport Museum's Seamanship Training program. Volunteers help to maintain the vessel while they learn to sail her, and will be part of the crew when she sails in the Gulf on her annual Spring Sea Trials. New recruits will continue be accepted into the Seamanship Training program for the next three sessions, including this Saturday, July 28.

Attending Saturday’s shipboard class does not obligate one to join the program. No experience is necessary, just an interest in learning the skills to sail and maintain a 19th-century square-rigged sailing ship. The Texas Seaport Museum is located on Harborside Drive between 21st and 22nd streets on Galveston Island.

Houston-Galveston-area residents who join the program have the rare opportunity to learn to sail and maintain a square-rigged sailing ship this summer and fall, and to take her into the Gulf of Mexico next spring. They will learn skills and even a vocabulary passed down from the days of the fictional Caribbean pirate, Jack Sparrow.

John Moran, interim director of the Texas Seaport Museum (TSM), said that attending a seamanship training session does not obligate a person to join the program, which is free of charge, and stresses that ELISSA and TSM offer a variety of volunteer opportunities for those whose schedules do not permit them to complete the full seamanship training program.

ELISSA was never a pirate ship, but as a British cargo ship of the 19th century, she specialized in calling at smaller ports of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. She twice loaded cotton at Galveston. It was this local connection, and the authenticity of her iron hull, that led Galveston Historical Foundation to purchase the vessel, then a cut-down motorship, and undertake her restoration. Today, ELISSA is one of only three pre-20th century sailing vessels in the United States that have been restored to full sailing capacity. “Volunteers were essential to the initial restoration,” said Moran, “and they have remained essential to her continuing life over the last 25 years.”

ELISSA has been designated by the National Park Service as a National Historic Landmark. She was named the “Official Tall Ship of Texas” in a resolution signed by Governor Rick Perry in June, 2005.

ELISSA sails several times every year. Every spring, she goes out for a series of day sails over the course of a two-week period. This year, she will participate in the Harvest Moon Regatta sponsored by the Lakewood Yacht Club and will sail to Corpus Christi and Port Aransas in the fall.

Those who participate in the seamanship training program, which includes maintenance tasks such as chipping rust, painting and tarring the rig, have the opportunity to learn ancient skills and techniques. After completing the classes, which take place on designated Saturdays, and contributing the required hours of work on the ship’s upkeep, participants are eligible to take ELISSA to sea.

Volunteers who are able may learn to climb ELISSA’s rigging to set and furl sails and maintain the intricate machinery of wood, wire and rope. These tasks require skill and bravery, as the ship’s main mast towers 99 feet above deck.

“Our seamanship program is the only one of its kind in the United States,” says Moran. “It is the only program in which an all-volunteer crew is fully prepared and given the opportunity to operate the ship.”

For more information on joining the volunteer crew of ELISSA, contact the Texas Seaport Museum at 409-763-1877. A full schedule of training sessions is available at http://www.galvestonhistory.org/elissa-sailtrain.asp. A gallery of press-ready photos of the ship and her crew is available for download at http://www.galvestonhistory.org/photo_gallery.asp.