Tall Ship Gazela Needs An Overhaul

By John Ostapkovich

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Philadelphia's tall ship, the Gazela, needs some repairs and that's proving to be a tall order.

The 112 year old Gazela will be laid up in dry dock for a two week hull inspection about mid-July. Eric Lorgus, president of The Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild, says this will firm up what needs to be done later in two phases.

Number one: "The removal of the copper plating, copper sheathing, recaulking, refastening the hull planks that are underneath, pulling a couple planks for inspection to see what it looks like under and then putting on a new copper sheathing which lasts 25 years."

Then, "The second phase is the top timbers and that's where we remove all the hull planks at a time that are covering up the frames and then we replace the frames that need to be replaced."

Total cost of repairs is expected to be in the $1.5 million dollar rank with 1/3 of that in the bank so far.  But another hangup is drydock time.  It's scarce on the northeast coast and the Gazela work could take about three months.

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