The Heart of the Guild: A Community Built on Wind, Wood, and Will

I would have never guessed this would be my path when I was handed that tri-folded brochure while stepping aboard for the first time so long ago. -Captain Scott Cointot

Sailing season is on the horizon. As we prepare to remove her winter cover, the ritual for putting all of Gazela’s pieces back in place begins. Her spars will be varnished and sent aloft, sails bent on, and running-rig set into place. With the help of our volunteers, Gazela transforms into a sailing ship once more. Much like a spring flower blooms, so too does activity aboard, from school groups and ship tours to dockside performances and crew training classes.

This month, the Guild looks back fondly upon the decades of blood, sweat, and tears that went into the preservation of our vessels and this ever-growing, close knit community borne from a shared mission. 

The Heart of the Guild

Consider that nobody individually owns her, yet everyone does. Nobody has to be there, but many develop a seemingly unexplainable obligation to her well being. There is much more to Gazela and the Guild than meets the eye. -Chris Simmons 

Volunteerism is the keel on which the vessel of our organization is built. Founded in 1971 as the Heritage Ship Guild, informally “Friends of Gazela”, the Guild began as an outgrowth of the crew that brought Gazela Primeiro over from Portugal. Gazela, a three-masted barkentine measuring 177 ft in length, previously served as a commercial fishing ship until her last trip in 1969 fishing the Grand Banks from Lisbon, Portugal. Originally gifted to the Philadelphia Maritime Museum (now Independence Seaport Museum) by William Wikoff Smith, the Guild spent several years maintaining Gazela until acquiring her outright in the ‘80s. She has since been designated the Official Tall Ship of Philadelphia. Today, she sails in the protected waters of the the Delaware River and Chesapeake Bay. She can be found at tall ship festivals or out on the river for our monthly training sails throughout the summer. At least 124 years old, Gazela is one of the oldest tall ships in the world still sailing. That she continues to sail is no small feat.

The glue that holds the Gazela experience together is made of many ingredients, not the least being the willingness to learn, to see new horizons, and forge meaningful relationships. -Donald Little 

As described by Mary Smith (wife to William Wikoff Smith), “a tall ship is not an inexpensive ambassador to maintain.” The Guild relies heavily upon donations of time, materials, and funding to carry out its mission to preserve its historic vessels and connect people with our maritime heritage. Alongside Gazela, the Guild also maintains the 1902 tugboat Jupiter and the barge Poplar, the latter of which serves as a floating workshop and has been crucial to the continued preservation of our ships. All of our vessels act as floating museums and outdoor classrooms for people of all ages and have served as a launching pad for our educational initiatives, including our recent Maritime Trades Pre-Apprenticeship Program for high school graduates and young adults. 

Today, PSPG has over 200 volunteers and members that come from many backgrounds–students, artists, engineers, teachers, lawyers, etc. of all different ages–who all share a common interest. We don’t require experience, simply that you have a willingness to work, learn, and share in our love for what we do. The role of the people of the Guild cannot be underestimated. 

The Value of Volunteering

The work we do is not so we can sail the ship, but so she’s around for future generations to sail. We are able to experience her because of the efforts of decades ago. -Patrick Flynn 

It’s hard to describe in a few words what we are doing with our vessels, as well as the impact they’ve had on so many lives. When Penn’s Landing passers-by ask us what we do, it’s often easier to describe what we don’t do (“No, we don’t do dinner cruises.”). Perhaps the simplest explanation is that we do what we must to preserve our ships and their history. Maintenance and repair throughout the year are imperative to keep them afloat, while dockside events and sailing to port festivals during warmer months contribute the funding to support that work. Any shipwright will tell you that a ship left at the dock rapidly dies, none more so than a wooden ship. 

There is a feeling [that] transcends pride that goes along with the sort of work we do on the ships that many people in this world today will never know. -Chris Simmons

Despite the skills you have when you first come aboard, Gazela and the Guild have an amazing ability to push you beyond what you thought you ever could do. It is not possible to separate ship preservation from the preservation of maritime and trades skills. Through Gazela, hundreds of people have learned the skills of maintaining and sailing a wooden ship, and many of those who began as volunteers have since moved on to do this work professionally. This community and our ships give us something to cling to through the hard times, so much so that you may hear a joking reference to the PSPG as the Philadelphia “Self” Preservation Guild. 

For myself, I’ve learned teamwork, tolerance, cooperation and humility. If the ship or my crewmates needed it, I tried my best. Sometimes I succeeded and gained confidence. Sometimes I fell short and learned humility…again. Always there was growth, always there was camaraderie, and always, at the center, was the ship. -Naomi Kaminsky 

Thank You to Our Community

Whether you’ve been a part of our community for a few decades or a few days, we can’t say “thank you” enough to our crew. Throughout this post, we’ve included testimonials from crew members past and present from The Heart of a Ship: Stories from the Crew of Gazela Primeiro (2011) to highlight how invaluable your work has been to the Guild, its vessels, and to one another. Without all of the great people who have given their time and effort to Gazela over the years, she would simply not still be here. This remains true for our tugboat Jupiter and barge Poplar, too. 

I am so grateful to…all the Gazela volunteers who make it all happen. Not only do you preserve this beautiful old ship, but you preserve the skills and the language and the traditions of a way of life that would otherwise be lost to history. -Betsy Witt Bein 

The Guild community is unique unto itself in that it welcomes anyone aboard, despite their level of experience. People of all walks of life have learned what it’s like to work together as part of a ship’s crew. Young adults and students have come aboard as volunteers and grown into accomplished adults, pursuing careers in the maritime trades. People have met, married, and raised families because of the connections they formed while volunteering with the Guild. Our community and our ships have enriched the lives of many, and will continue to do so, so long as there is work to be done. And there is always work to be done. 

Gazela is part of a long tradition that has little to do with the age of her timbers. It is a tradition of fairly random groups of people coming together to face danger and boredom while making sure the dishes get done. On a ship of Gazela's age, that tradition has seeped into her to the point that it may not be the age of the actual wood, but the number of crew that really form the heart of the ship. How many crews have occupied that foc’s’le? How many languages have been spoken there? -John Brady