125 Years of Gazela Primeiro: The People Who Keep Her Going

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Ships like Gazela don’t last 125 years on their own. People keep them alive.

Built in Setúbal, Portugal, in 1901, Gazela Primeiro spent nearly seven decades as a working fishing vessel, carrying Portuguese fishermen across the North Atlantic to the Grand Banks. Each season meant months at sea, with dories stacked on deck, salt packed into the hold, and crews working long days in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions.

Her final commercial fishing voyage took place in 1969. Two years later, Gazela crossed the Atlantic again, this time headed for a new life in Philadelphia, where she arrived on July 8, 1971.

More than 50 years later, she’s still here.

Generations of People Have Kept Her Going

Since Gazela came to Philadelphia, countless people have scraped, sanded, painted, caulked, rigged, repaired, cooked, learned, fundraised, organized, sailed, and simply kept showing up when there was work to be done - perhaps you were one of them!

In 2011, the Guild published The Heart of a Ship: Stories from the Crew of Gazela Primeiro, a book created to preserve some of the experiences and relationships that had grown around the ship.

Mary Smith, whose husband William Wikoff Smith (Bill) brought Gazela to the United States, dedicated the book in part to “all of the volunteers who have done so much to keep Gazela sailing all these years.” She wrote:

“Today, Gazela is one of the oldest tall ships in the world still sailing. Most important to me is that she is cared for and staffed by volunteers. Gazela is looked after by people who love her and who love to sail on her, as did Bill.”

Mary went on to share that the stories surrounding Gazela are as varied as the crew themselves; and these stories make clear that preserving Gazela was never only about maintaining the wood, rigging, and machinery.

For instance, Lenore Kahn joined during Gazela’s major re-decking project in 2000, when the vessel had effectively become a floating woodworking shop for nearly three years. Lenore wrote:

“My ‘day job’ is as a hospice social worker. When I try to explain why Gazela is fun for me, I usually focus on explaining my varied assignments including learning to use a palm sander, painting, cooking, hauling on lines or sweeping up sawdust. There was a definite sense of accomplishment at the end of each day and without the emotional stress of my hospice work. I also describe Gazela as my ‘adult jungle gym.’”

After years of restoration work, Lenore recalled the magical feeling she got when she finally sailed on the ship she helped rebuild.

Again and again, The Heart of a Ship tells some version of this story: people come aboard to learn a skill, make a repair, or go sailing... and they find adventures, friendships, careers, and community along the way.

She’s Still a Working Ship. Just in a Different Way.

Today, Gazela’s work looks different than it did on the Grand Banks. But she is still very

much a working ship.

As a living classroom, training vessel, and gathering place, Gazela gives volunteers a chance to learn by doing. They help maintain the ship, build maritime and trades skills, and learn what it means to work as part of a crew.

That hands-on approach also shapes PSPG’s education and workforce programs. Young people come aboard through educational programs, internships, and pre-apprenticeship opportunities that introduce them to maritime and skilled-trades careers. And through public events, like Open Ship tours and Riverside Sessions concerts, people who may never have stepped aboard a tall ship get a chance to come aboard, explore Gazela, and experience a historic working vessel up close.

In many ways, PSPG is now building more intentional pathways from experiences aboard Gazela into maritime work, something that has happened organically for decades. Dozens of former volunteers and interns have gone on to long-term careers in the maritime industry, working as riggers, deckhands, captains, port supervisors, and more.

Kelsey Mullin started volunteering with the Guild in 2008 at age 18 and later spent six years working professionally on tall ships before moving into her current role as a software engineering manager. When asked how PSPG shaped her career path, she wrote:

“PSPG gave me the skills and connections for my 6 years working on tall ships. That career gave me the leadership skills I use now as a manager. My software jobs have all come from a connection I made on Gazela, too. So I have no idea what I would have done if I hadn't started volunteering on Gazela when I was 18.”

Now, the Guild is committed to creating those opportunities more deliberately and making them available to more people.

125 Years and a New Chapter

For PSPG, preserving Gazela isn’t simply about keeping an old ship afloat. It’s also about keeping what happens around her alive: skills passed from one person to another, the experience of working as part of a crew, the chance for a young person to discover a career they didn’t know existed, and the community that grows when people with very different backgrounds show up to work toward something together.

Looking ahead, the goal is to open more doors through training, education, and hands-on opportunities. The Guild wants to give more people from across the Philadelphia region a chance to learn aboard Gazela, build skills, volunteer, find pathways into maritime work, and experience life on the water for themselves.

Doing that will take more than ship maintenance. It will take volunteers, members, donors, employers, community partners, sponsors, skilled tradespeople, and people who simply discover Gazela and decide they want to be part of what happens next.