SSV Elissa
A tall ship of the Western Ocean, posting exclusive accounts of her passages for subscribers who care to follow the voyage. Letters answered by return post.
- 7
- Dispatches Posted
- 6
- Days at Sea
Other figures, by the bosun's reckoning and no underwriter's: 14 knots logged at peak speed, 312 fathoms of rigging handled.
Full Particulars
An old ship still very much under sail, and not shy about saying so. There may be finer vessels on the water, but few keep so candid a log.
We post exclusive accounts of our passages, including a few manoeuvres not suited to the faint of constitution, as wind and tide allow. Subscribers who keep faith with the log are well looked after.
Letters answered by return post. Charts drawn and navigation advised for a fair consideration. Those wanting private guidance through less familiar passages are welcome to write directly.
Subscribe for the uncensored version. Some passages are not for the delicate. Consider yourself warned, and invited.
The Vessel, the Voyage & the Author
The Vessel
The SSV Elissa is a three-masted iron barque of the old square-rigged kind, well past a hundred years afloat and still working under sail. Saved from the breakers and restored, she sails today as a school ship, her trainee crew learning the rig the hard way, by hauling on it.
The Voyage
This season finds her along the Atlantic seaboard, working her way from port to port as the weather and the crew allow. Where exactly she lies on any given day is best told by the log itself, and by the chart on the front page. What plan there is holds only until the wind forms an opinion of its own.
The Author
I sail aboard the Elissa and keep this log when the day's work is done and the watch allows. I find the shore agreeable chiefly as a place to provision and depart from. These dispatches are kept for friends, family, and anyone curious about what life under sail is actually like, whether they come for the instruction, the entertainment, or the warning.