Saturday, June 30, 2018

2018 Museum Ships Weekend Dockside the 1877 Tall Ship Elissa

Hello:
Thanks for stopping by.  This years activation was done on a smaller scale than in the past.  For the first time in 3 years we had good weather for it!
The Elissa is a working ship.  She is maintained a crew of mostly volunteers.  While we were there this year the crew was lowering some spars from the upper part of the mast.  This is done using manual capstans, ropes and pulleys.  I neglected to take a photo of the ship mounted capstans.  Here are series of photos from that work.





The dock area is located at Pier 19.  The Galveston Port is busy.  Pier 19 is located next to the cruise ship terminals.  All ships entering and departing the Port of Galveston require a pilot to navigate their passage.  The following are some photos pertaining to the cruise ships that are very visible from our operating positions.

When a ship is at sea, they lower a ladder for the pilot to climb and board the ship.  In dock it is more civilized.  Here the pilot boat is delivering the pilot to the dock.

This is one of two cruise ships that were docked each day of our operation.

Both cruise ships left on Saturday afternoon to be replaced with 2 more.  We also had another visitor dock during the overnight/evening hours.
In this video you can see one of the cruise ships leaving the dock.  The pilot is charge if the ship at this time.
As mentioned earlier Pier 19 and the area are busy.  Cruise ships, like all ships, require fuel.  In the next video you can see the two harbor tour boats and fuel barge all in our general area.
The following video shows some workboats and two of our operators.

Of course it would not be MSWE without race boats going by.
Unfortunately, the video of this was too big to upload.

This is the last video.  In addition to noises from ships, tour boat, ships whistles, helicopters, planes, public address systems, etc; One of the harbor tours loads right at our operating location.  This video shows a couple of tug boats going by and tourists waiting to board the tour boat.

 We enjoy putting the Elissa on the air for MSWE.  We hope we had the opportunity to work you.  We made 776 contacts during the weekend with two stations.  Rick, KE5BZE was an "energizer bunny" on 20 meter phone!  Robie AJ4F, was our CW operator and also worked phone and did I, AD5WB.
I feel fortunate that we were able to make as many contacts as we did with the band conditions as they were.

Until next year, thanks and 73.
Leslie, AD5WB