Philly tall ship returns to sea
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – After five years of being limited to protected waters, Philadelphia’s resident tall ship Gazela hoists its sails Sunday and heads off into the Atlantic. A damaged rudder has kept the 175-foot vessel built in 1883 confined to the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay.
But last month after years of delays, shipwright Patrick Flynn installed a new handmade 26-foot rudder.
“We’re back in business,” said Eric Lorgus, president of the nonprofit Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild, which owns and operates the ship.
Gazela’s first voyage will be about 250 miles to the historic whaling town of New Bedford, Mass., with a return scheduled for Aug. 7 and another departure a week later for New York Harbor. In October, the vessel will head out again for an oyster festival on Long Island before returning home and closing up for winter.
The Portuguese cod-fishing vessel, one of the world’s oldest continually sailed wooden square-riggers, was sidelined after ship surveyors found rot in the rudder post in late 2004 and cautioned against any ocean voyages until a new rudder could be installed.
The sailing season next year is still being planned, but Lorgus hopes for a few high-seas adventures like those of years past, when Gazela sailed to Maine, Quebec, and the Bahamas. The Gazela carries no passengers on these trips and is crewed by volunteers who earn the right to sail after donating 50 hours of maintenance.
The vessel spent its first 86 years sailing from Portugal to the fishing banks off New England.
season with 350 tons of dried fish. In 1969, Gazela’s owners quit the business, and the vessel was purchased by philanthropist William Wikoff Smith and donated to what was then the Philadelphia Maritime Museum.
Lorgus says the ship costs more than $100,000 a year to operate, and that doesn’t count repairs. Between 2001 and 2003, the guild replaced the entire deck, water tanks, electrical wiring, and much of the hull planking above the waterline.
Flynn recently found rot in the main timbers to which the planks are fastened, and hull planks near the affected timbers must be removed to get to them – a costly and labor-intensive job. If volunteers can do the work, it will cost about $3.5 million, and professional repairs would cost “much more,” he said.
Either way, officials say, the guild must soon launch a fund drive to start the job.
“It’s do or die,” said Flynn, who first volunteered on the ship as a teenager. “If we don’t do it in the next 10 years, she’ll be lost.”
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Information from: The Philadelphia Inquirer, http://www.philly.com
AP-ES-07-24-10 1659EDT