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ELISSA Volunteers
“So You Want to be a Sailor?”
Sure. Who do I make the check out to? Keep it. ELISSA has an all-volunteer crew. That means you don’t get paid - and you don’t pay.
What does it involve? It involves whatever you are willing to put into it. If you want to be eligible to crew during our annual daysails, however, you must work a minimum of 130 maintenance hours and attend a series of weekend sail training sessions.
When is sail training, and for how long? Twenty sail training sessions are held on Saturdays, beginning in July 2008 and ending in March 2009.
Is sail training difficult? It requires concentration, sweat and study, but it’s not a killer. Learning and reviewing a few key concepts will ensure that you are ready for each weekend’s sessions.
Are crew slots competitive? That depends entirely on how many volunteers go through training. If candidates outnumber slots, crew will be selected based on quizzes and performance. Realistically? For the 2006 day sails, each volunteer who went through training was able to sail for at least 3 of the 7 days. That’s not bad at all.
Do you have to be in good shape? Simple answer - yes. Sailing a 19th Century square-rigger involves a lot of pulling on lines. Our crew, however, are all ages - from early teens to retirees. No matter how old you are, be prepared to love it!
Do you get to climb in the rigging? ELISSA is an honest-to-goodness square-rigger - no roller-furling sails here. Any volunteer can ask to climb. If you can traverse a set of playground monkey bars and keep a clear head aloft, you’ll be one of our climbing crew. If not, we do have a limited number of crew slots for non-climbers.
What will I be doing, really? Each class consists of half sail training instruction and half maintenance instruction. You will be chipping rust, sanding teakwood, seizing manila lines, painting, tarring [pine tar, not coal tar], sweeping, scrubbing, carpentering, oiling. During sail training, you will be pulling lines, tying knots, climbing 90 feet into the rig, straining with your crewmates at the capstan and windlass, singing sea chanties as 10 people raise a yard in unison, walking around the ship over and over while memorizing the placement and use of 180 lines. You will also be getting to know a lot of new people from every conceivable walk of life.
This is overwhelming. How will I be able to learn all of it? Come down. Do a few days’ work on board. Meet the longtime volunteers, and your fellow neophytes. Soak in the strange, salty language of 19th Century sail technology. Pester the staff with incessant questions. Spend a few hours in the Museum’s library reading about ships and sailing. After you’ve acquired 20 volunteer hours, bring your sleeping bag and stay overnight, sleeping on ELISSA’s open deck in the Galveston breeze. Share dinner with your crewmates, and listen to sea stories. You’ll probably find that you soak it all in and ask for more.
Okay, I want to volunteer. Now what? Come straight to the Texas Seaport Museum, at Pier 21 [Harborside Drive and 21st Street] in Galveston, Texas, any day of the week except Thursdays between 9am and 5pm. The sooner you begin volunteering, the faster your knowledge of the ship and volunteer program will grow, and of course the sooner your fun begins! If you plan to sign up for the next sail training course [which begins in July 2008], your volunteer service prior to that time will be a big help to you in learning about a square-rigged ship, and a big help to ELISSA. Come on down!
I love the ship, but I’m interested in something more docile - what can I do? Great! There are plenty of things to do at ELISSA that don’t actually involve sailing. Being a museum, she is always in need of dedicated folks who love giving tours, working on collections and research, giving talks to students in area schools, teaching overnight groups of young people aboard ELISSA, demonstrating seamanship and sailor’s arts, participating in our speakers bureau, or simply putting in a few hours with a paintbrush.
Your website is great, but I’d like to speak with the museum about volunteering. Please do! Call 409-763-1877 and ask about the volunteer program. Or write: Texas Seaport Museum, Pier 21, No. 8, Galveston, Texas 77550; or even quicker, e-mail the Museum directly.
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