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Volunteers

The South Australian Maritime Museum has an active volunteer program. We currently rely on the help of over 70 people to manage and preserve our vessels and collections.

The Museum is currently in urgent need of skilled volunteers to crew its historic steam tug Yelta.  If you have a marine background and wish to donate your time, effort and knowledge to help ensure this icon of the port gets to see out the rest of her life in the style she deserves, we want to hear from you.

We are particularly in need of Engineers who have Reciprocating Steam/Boiler Ticket Endorsements.  However, we would also welcome masters, deck officers, mates, woodworkers, plumbers, fitters and turners, boilermakers, welders, greasers and able seamen.

The steel steam tug Yelta was built in 1949 by Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Co., Sydney.  She was owned by Ritch and Smith of Port Adelaide and was originally coal fired but was converted to oil in 1957. 
After twenty-seven years service guiding vessels in and out of Port Adelaide, Yelta was finally laid up in November 1976.  In the following year she was sold to the Port Adelaide branch of the National Trust of South Australia.

In May 1985 Yelta was purchased by the South Australian Maritime Museum and after a program of restoration and re-fitting by an army of enthusiastic volunteers, South Australia’s last commercial steam tug began a new life as one of the Museum’s floating exhibits.

For various reasons this army has been depleted over time and is in need of replenishing.  The Museum still has a core group of very dedicated volunteers but requires people with specialised knowledge that ticketed, experienced seagoing or retired personnel can bring to this important ongoing project.

If you are interested please contact:

Matt Gurn
Fleet Manager & Volunteer Coordinator
8207 6255
0401 124 987

For collections volunteers, we welcome those with a love for cultural material and an interest in history. Current volunteers are working on collection management, in the library, on the stored collection, gallery maintenance, on the photographic collection, databases and in research. Contact Curator Kevin Jones on 08 8207 6260 or at kjones@history.sa.gov.au. 

Previous experience is not a necessity!