[3] Elissa was built in Aberdeen, Scotland as a merchant vessel in a time when steamships were overtaking sailing ships.

However, she languished in a salvage yard in Piraeus until she was purchased for $40,000, in 1975, by the Galveston Historical Foundation, her current owners.

There, she was prepared for an ocean tow by Captain Jim Currie of the New Orleans surveyors J.K. Tynan International.

[citation needed] Elissa has an iron hull, and the pin rail and bright work is made of teak.

[citation needed] Elissa made her first voyage as a restored sailing ship in 1985, traveling to Corpus Christi, Texas.

[citation needed] Texas Seaport Museum raised the $3 million that paid for hull replacement and other long-overdue maintenance projects, finishing in January 2013.

The museum also replaced the 22,000 board feet of Douglas fir decking and building new quarterdeck furniture out of high quality teak.

She runs a series of daily sails for a period of two to three weeks out of her home port of Galveston each spring.