Philadelphia's tall ship gets $300,000 surgery

After spending more than a month in dry dock, being overhauled from top to bottom by volunteers, the Gazela, the city's official tall ship and the country's oldest square-rigged wooden vessel, will again be able to sail this week.

On Thursday, the 114-year-old ship will leave dry dock at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, its home since the end of July, and sail back to its usual home at the north end of Penn's Landing.

"We removed planks below the water level to assess the condition of the framing, to be able to plan for a major rebuild," said Patrick Flynn, the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild's superintendent of ships.

He called the endeavor "exploratory surgery."

Guild president Al Ponessa said the biggest challenge was repairing damage from rainwater that leaked into the decades-old Portuguese stone pine, rotting it. Another challenge was scraping the copper on the ship's bottom and assessing the frame.

Now that the $300,000 project is completed, the Gazela is in condition to sail up river to Penn's Landing and along the Eastern Seaboard. The Guild's goal is to get the Gazela in shape to be able to sail to Portugal, where the 177-foot-long, three-masted barkentine was constructed in 1901.

"That means it's in good enough shape to survive for 50 years," Flynn said. "This ship needs to be here when I'm gone."

Flynn called the Gazela "Philadelphia's best-kept secret."

"Gazela is open to anyone and everyone who's willing to come down and be involved and get to work," he said. "That's a remarkable thing about this ship, since the crew is made up of whoever gets bit by the bug. You can have a 90-year-old college professor next to a 22-year-old exotic dancer. Which actually happened."

Indeed, most of the hands-on work was done by volunteers, Ponessa said.

"I like to say she's the public-access square-rigger. There are other vessels of a similar size, a similar height, in this country and in the world, but I don't think there's anyone where the bar to entry is as low as it is for Gazela," Flynn said.

Flynn was a 17-year-old living in Havertown when he started working on the Gazela.

At the time, he would often bike to the city after school, each time daring himself to push farther into Philadelphia. One of his trips deposited him at Penn's Landing, where he saw people working on the Gazela.

"I asked the volunteers who were working there what I could do to help," he said. "They handed me a paint brush and said, 'Can you paint?' "

He spent the first day painting the inside of a rail. Nearly three decades later, he still enjoys painting the ship and polishing brass, but prefers to serve as one of the ship's captains.

"That's fun," he said. "It's an interesting sort of one-person chess game, figuring out how to maneuver a 15-foot draft, 600-ton ship."

That 600-ton ship started out as a fishing vessel, and worked as such until 1969. It eventually came to Penn's Landing in 1985.

Today, the ship appears at "every major tall ship event on the East Coast," Flynn said.

Last year at the Star-Spangled Spectacular festival in Baltimore, the Gazela attracted 15,000 visitors in five days; on an average weekend in Philadelphia, the ship welcomes about 30 tourists per day. It also hosts theatrical productions, musical events - even the occasional pirate-theme wedding.

When it sails, it's with an all-volunteer crew of about 20, Ponessa said.

"It's a great opportunity. We teach people," Ponessa said. "If you've never set foot on a boat, you can still join our crew."

For Flynn, the Gazela is more than a remnant of history. It's the place where he started his maritime career, where he became "hooked" on sailing - even where he met his wife. He is determined to preserve the Gazela for future generations.

"I'm hoping if we do it all right, she's still here in Philadelphia for the experience we all get out of her," he said. "That's the goal."

The Guild has about 150 volunteers, and is always looking for more. To volunteer, call 215-238-0280 or go to http://philashipguild.org/.

kblum@phillynews.com

@danilyst