Shipmates,

2012 Plankowners’ Party!!! I hope we see as many of ELISSA’s crew in attendance as possible! This year’s event is shaping up to be a very special one, with ELISSA’s approaching dry-docking and hull work along with the long anticipated TSM pier 21 rebuild beginning at last. As we are all aware, Plankowners’ is our big fundraising event of the year and is an important source of revenue for daysails and in supporting the on-going maintenance needs of the ship. 

It is also a time to show off our ship and the fine people ELISSA calls crew. Not only ELISSA will be on show this Saturday evening, but all of us…her crew will be center stage as well. Ed Green mentions in this week’s newsletter that all working crewmembers are expected to be in ELISSA royal blue shirts and khaki long pants – please no shorts. I want to remind everyone that if you are working during Plankowners’ to refrain from the consumption of alcoholic beverages. If you are not on watch or have paid as a guest, please enjoy the fruits of the vine, but if not - then please remember to show the proper decorum and respect by refraining from hoisting a glass while on duty. With the expectation of pleasant weather, we may set a number of sails and it would be good to have some crew alert and sober to hand canvas.

I want to thank all of you for doing a yeoman’s job with this year’s Plankowners’ Party and Auction. It has been a bit of a challenge with the new venue, but I have not heard any complaining and you all have my gratitude. Next year we will have Plankowners’ with a newly fixed up site and a freshly repaired ship, so let’s make the most of this year’s event – it may be the only time we have Plankowners’ with ELISSA alongside Pier 21! Having ELISSA front and center at Pier 21 will make for a very memorable event. I am very excited about auctioning off a piece of ELISSA’s original hull plating with a section of frame attached. We had the hull plate section grit blasted with sugar to reveal all the detail without removing the surface features of the plate. One can read the date 1877 stamped into the frame piece. We are going to have it in the live auction as the last available hull plate – number 318 out of 318 and it is a work of art a true ship fitter’s sculpture.

In past preambles to the newsletter I have often quoted from Joseph Conrad. In the spirit of mixing things up, much like this year’s Plankowners’, I thought I would close with a quote and request

Here is the quote from My Ship O’ Dreams by Robert Rose:

“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid.”

…and the request:

for all of you to enjoy our ship and each other with a song in your hearts and a sea story in our souls.

Even a layman can see the fine lines in ELISSA’s hull and they will be on full display along with her crew – a group of incredibly talented people from varied backgrounds all coming together to ensure ELISSA is well loved. What fortunate people we are to have one of the most beautiful things on this planet to play with, a beautiful square-rigger. While I admit there have been some days where I shake my head after a long day of contrary winds, there is NEVER a morning I do not find a smile swayed aloft in my heart every time I see ELISSA glow in the light of a new day’s morning. Like one of the true clipper ships of old, she is a Herald of the Morning. The greatest author and recorder of the Sea, Captain Joseph Conrad, was master of a ship very much like ELISSA, and best summed up his feelings about her and captured our love of ELISSA in a single line:

“It is good to be in a world in which she has her being”

Thank you all for “being” in ELISSA’s world, too, and forgive me for not being able to resist the pull of a fine Conrad quote.

Fair leads,

Jamie

James L. White

Director

Texas Seaport Museum / 1877 Barque ELISSA

Pier 21, Number 8

Galveston, TX 77550

409-763-1877

409-763-3037 FAX

www.tsm-elissa.org

"Of all the living creatures upon land and sea, it is ships alone that cannot be

taken in by barren pretences, that will not put up with bad art from their masters"

(Joseph Conrad ~ Mirror of the Sea).

Dear Shipmates,

Well, it has been a long haul amidst a wake of blisters since sail training began, but we have a vessel and crew we can all take pride in. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication – you all have my respect and admiration. Since we moved ELISSA to Pier 21, I have heard many comments about how beautiful she looks, how she graces Galveston’s waterfront, how much longer she appears than at her other berth, and many other comments. All of the comments have at their center the truth that ELISSA is a work of art in wrought iron and wood. Of all the creations made to move our spirits, fine hulled lofty ships are the noblest creatures poised on that fine line between the divine and human design. We are all helping in creating this continuing work of art…ELISSA.

Ships graceful as ELISSA have lit up and awakened the hearts and spirits of people through the ages. Our souls, our shared spirits and our humanity are buoyed with each pull upon a halyard and every awakening sail spread out upon her spars. It is not just us, a fortunate few, who look upon this beauty. Look into the eyes of visitors ashore along the pier and promenade and see the marvel of our creation, our ELISSA, in their eyes. I very much enjoy speaking to visitors awed by the beauty and spectacle of sail training and the art and grace you all create during each sail training weekend. They often ask me what it is like “up there” or how beautiful ELISSA looks amongst many other questions and comments. Those lucky people watching from ashore are being treated to a performance in which there is poetry in every buntline.

Ships companies are communities isolated from the rest of the world outside the bulwarks and topgallant rails. We have our own language and customs not found ashore. We all find common purpose in working for the ship, our ship, our ELISSA. Our fears and foibles are mixed with our shipmates and alloyed with our combined strengths, passions, and joys to form a metal as noble and stout as any bitt or bollard. With our shipmates at our side, we can reach goals and attain heights we could otherwise never accomplish. Remember your first time aloft, or any other challenge aboard ship, and the reassuring voices of your shipmates. We delight in our successes…and we have had many. Those who struggle together with respect and common vision can accomplish feats seemingly impossible under ordinary conditions. Your shipmates are a source of strength.

We are almost at the end of this year’s sail training and maybe it is time for a reminder from me about your shipmates. I have heard of several occasions where crew was not responsive to the commands and requests of mast captains and foreman. We have a hierarchy aboard for the safe and efficient operation of the ship. It can only work if we all follow requests and orders from your mast captain, work foreman and SOC.

We have our biggest event of the year outside daysails next weekend. It is vital that we all work together and remain conscious of the fact that almost everything will be different due to the relocation of ELISSA to Pier 21. We will have construction of our new berth beginning next Tuesday and I am sure it will be an added aggravation to setting up Plankowners’. I believe we have a wonderful opportunity to have a great event with ELISSA acting as more of a centerpiece. We have hired a professional auctioneer and his company to put on the live auction and assist with check-in and check-out. There will be glitches and problems, but as a crew we can work through them all. Just be patient with each other and our guests and remember that however neatly you may flake out a line for running, all it takes is one roll of the ship to cast a hockle into the works.

Let’s remember that this event and all the things we do are for ELISSA… for our ship.

Joseph Conrad writes in Mirror of the Sea:

“But of the delight of seeing a small craft run bravely amongst the great seas there can be no question to him whose soul does not dwell ashore. Thus I well remember a three days' run got out of a little barque of 400 tons somewhere between the islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam and Cape Otway on the Australian coast. It was a hard, long gale, gray clouds and green sea, heavy weather undoubtedly, but still what a sailor would call manageable. Under two lower topsails and a reefed foresail the barque seemed to race with a long, steady sea that did not becalm her in the troughs. The solemn thundering combers caught her up from astern, passed her with a fierce boiling up of foam level with the bulwarks, swept on ahead with a swish and a roar: and the little vessel, dipping her jib-boom into the tumbling froth, would go on running in a smooth, glassy hollow, a deep valley between two ridges of the sea, hiding the horizon ahead and astern. There was such fascination in her pluck, nimbleness, the continual exhibition of unfailing seaworthiness, in the semblance of courage and endurance, that I could not give up the delight of watching her run through the three unforgettable days of that gale which my mate also delighted to extol as ‘a famous shove.’”

I am working on the “draft” ELISSA Hull Preservation Plan that will be the guiding document during the upcoming shipyard. This draft repair proposal will be presented to the Coast Guard for their approval. I am sure elements of it will change. In the words of the famous Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Fair leads,

Jamie

James L. White
Director 1877 ELISSA