Who knows how to sail a square-rigger?
(Me, holding hand aloft and dancing from foot to foot). "I do! I do!"
35 years ago I was a volunteer crew member and mizzenmast captain aboard the barque Elissa at the Texas Seaport Museum in Galveston. (Photo in comments)
So it's a delight to discover the genre "Shanty Pop," with Sail North as a prime example. Take a listen.
I went searching for software nostalgia just now, and found a copy of DOS-based Professional File, a flat-file database I used at the Texas Seaport Museum in 1990.
I used it to automate our main fundraiser, a silent auction.
Manually matching winning bids to items, and generating a bill for the winners, took 2 hours after the auction closed. With the new system on a Compaq 286 laptop, it took 20 minutes. I don't think I've ever since felt as empowered by technology.
Happy Juneteenth to all!
From The Bitter Southerner, here is a lovely recollection of Juneteenth in Houston, background on the important date, and a red drink recipe.
I was assistant director of Galveston's Texas Seaport Museum in the early '90s; it's on Pier 21 in the city's port, likely not far from where the ship docked with the new Union commander arriving with the declaration of freedom in 1865.
#Juneteenth
#Galveston
#Houston
#TexasSeaportMuseum
https://bittersoutherner.com/feature/2021/tiffanie-barriere-juneteenth-jubilee
@msbellows
I saw your mention of work in mountain rescue! When I was a volunteer crew member on tall ship Elissa at the Texas Seaport Museum in Galveston, I was trained in rig rescue. Our job was to get into this harness and be hoisted aloft to help should a crew member be injured in the rigging (80-100 feet above the deck) and unable to climb down.
This me in about 1989 on a training exercise. Luckily I never was called on to do it for real.
@thisismyglasgow
A far happier story is the barque Elissa, built at the Alexander Hall shipyard in Glasgow in 1877, fully restored by the Galveston (Texas) Historical Foundation in the 1980s, still lovingly maintained by volunteers, and still sails on sea trials every fall in the Gulf of Mexico. Elissa is open to the public at the Texas Seaport Museum, where I was assistant director in 1990-91.
#TexasSeaportMuseum
#GalvestonHistoricalFoundation
#TallShip
Just a little #ThrowbackThursday
One thing I know that's a little different: I can sail a square-rigged vessel. I was a volunteer crewmember aboard the tall ship #Elissa at the #TexasSeaportMuseum in #Galveston at the end of the 80s. I was the museum's assistant director in 1990-91.
That's me just to the left of the mast, helping furl the main topgallant.
Donald Ham 
