The historic 1877 tall ship Elissa will set sail for Pensacola this month as part of a six-stop national voyage celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The ship will spend a weekend docked in Pensacola May 23-24 and offer free deck tours of the Elissa, one of only three ships of her kind in the world still actively sailing.
The Galveston Historical Foundation brought Elissa, an 1877 square-rigged iron barque, from a scrapyard in Piraeus Harbor, Greece, to Galveston, Texas, to begin restoration work in 1978. By 1982, GHF staff and volunteers completed restoration and transformed this rare, historic vessel into a floating museum that would actively sail.
Today, Elissa welcomes over 40,000 visitors annually and serves as the official tall ship of Texas, a national historic landmark and a symbol of the Gulf Coast’s historic beginnings as a seaport and active waterfront.
The ship has visited Pensacola twice before, once in 1886 and again in 2018.
“This historic arrival offers a rare opportunity to experience a living piece of maritime heritage up close, with deck tours inviting visitors on board to explore the ship’s craftsmanship, stories, and enduring legacy,” a news release on the event said.
Elissa will dock at Palafox Pier in downtown Pensacola. Here is the schedule of events:
Saturday, May 23, tall ship Elissa events
Sunday, May 24, tall ship Elissa events
Registration for the USCG Eagle and sunset salute events are available at galveston250.com/ports/pensacola-florida/.
The Pensacola visit is one of Elissa’s six port calls en route to and from the America 250 celebrations in New York Harbor. The others are Savannah, Georgia (June 4-7); Yorktown (June 12-14) and Portsmouth, Virginia (June 19-22); New York, New York (July 3-7); and Boston, Massachussetts (July 11-15).
This will be the tall ship’s first return to New York in 30 years to join the largest-ever flotilla of tall ships from around the world for a universal celebration of America’s 250th anniversary on July 4th. As the oldest ship at the event, The Elissa will lead the Class A ships in the parade of tall ships.
For more information visit galvestonhistory.org.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Historic 1877 tall ship Elissa returning to Pensacola after 8 years
Reporting by Troy Moon, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
