Woman falls to death from mast of historic ship in Texas
Police say a woman fell to her death from a mast on a historic ship that’s featured at a Texas museum after her safety harness somehow came unclipped
A woman fell to her death from a mast on a historic ship that's featured at a Texas museum after her safety harness somehow came unclipped, police said.
The 58-year-old woman died Saturday after falling from a mast on the tall ship Elissa, which is berthed at Galveston's seaport museum, the Galveston County Daily News reported.
“We’re not sure exactly what happened that she wasn’t double-clipped in,” Port of Galveston Police Chief Kenneth Brown said. “When she went to move from one location to another, she apparently slipped and fell.”
A spokesman for the Galveston Historical Foundation, which operates the ship and the museum, confirmed the death but declined to provide further details.
Training classes are held each year on the Elissa and they include lessons in sail rigging, which involves climbing up the ships masts, the newspaper reported. A training class had been scheduled to meet on Saturday, according to the foundation's website.
The historical foundation brought the Elissa, which was built in 1877, from a scrapyard in Greece in 1978, according to the foundation. After restoration work, the ship opened as a floating museum and now has more than 40,000 visitors each year.