Next month, on the 160th year after it was first launched, the USS Constellation will leave its semi-permanent berth at Pier 1 for a short voyage down the Patapsco River to undergo about $2 million in repairs.

A fixture in the Inner Harbor since 1955, the Constellation is in need of urgent repairs to its hull above the water line, says Chris Rowsom, executive director of Historic Ships in Baltimore.

The problem is rot. Rainwater has seeped through the tumblehome, or inward slope of the hull, causing fungus to grow in planks installed when the ship underwent a $9 million restoration in the late 1990s.

Ironically, the ship’s original 1854 bottom, consisting of 12 straights, or ribs, on either side of the keel, is in tip-top condition, Rowsom said.

The deterioration of the hull was diagnosed three years ago. The vessel, the last all-sail warship built by the U.S. Navy, will be towed to the U.S. Coast Guard yard in Curtis Bay on October 20 to undergo four months of repairs.

Repair Plans

Yesterday, the Board of Estimates set aside $750,000 in city bond funds to replace about 4,000 square feet of the ship’s hull.

The state of Maryland will kick in another $125,000 for rigging work on her spars, yards and topmasts. Rowsom said the main yard, 85 feet long and two feet in diameter, is a candidate for replacement once experts thoroughly inspect the drydocked ship.

Living Classrooms Foundation, which operates the Historic Ships program, will use more than $1 million in private funds for the additional maintenance.

Before it was decommissioned in 1955 and returned to Baltimore, the Constellation was the last all-sail vessel in the U.S. Navy. After decades of protecting U.S. vessels from brigands and hostile warships around the world, the Constellation was used to train Naval Academy midshipmen before being moved to Newport, R.I., as a training ship.

Pieces of the Original Frigate?

Technically known as a sloop-of-war or corvette, the gunboat’s provenance has been a matter of controversy.

Some historians trace back its design back to the first USS Constellation, launched from the Sterrett Shipyard at Canton’s Harris Creek on September 7, 1797 – the first of six frigates put to sea under the Naval Act of 1794. Others says there is no connection.

Rowsom leans toward the former group, noting in an interview that the first Constellation was disassembled at the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Va., where the current ship was constructed.

“There are eight pieces of the original Constellation in this ship, according to a newspaper account of the 1854 launching,” Rowsom said. “We don’t know where they are, most likely in the framing sections of the ship.”

The Constellation is scheduled to return to the Inner Harbor on February 20, 2015, and resume its place as a floating museum and national historic landmark at Pier 1 in the Inner Harbor.