Intriguing news about Charles W. Morgan, the last American sailing whale ship.  From Boston.com

Mystic Seaport officials are now considering whether to make the ship seaworthy again so that it can tour New England’s coastline in the summer of 2012, with stops in New London, Newport, R.I., Provincetown, Mass., and New Bedford, Mass. The Morgan is undergoing a $6 million restoration at the museum, which has a working shipyard. Putting air in the sails would cost an additional $2 million. The idea has been tossed around for at least a decade, but last May, White and other officials started giving it serious consideration.

Next month, the museum’s administrators and restoration officials will gather and may decide on whether to sail the ship.

“We’ll bring forward what we’ve learned so far, which will probably be that it needs a tremendous amount of work,’’ said Quentin Snediker, director of the Henry B. duPont Preservation Shipyard.

The Morgan had run-ins with cannibals in the Pacific and with Confederate raiders and German U-Boats in the Atlantic, among other experiences during 37 whaling voyages spanning 80 years, said museum spokesman Michael O’Farrell.

The ship traveled the globe in pursuit of whales, typically spending three to five years at sea, occasionally docking for supplies. The crew, usually numbering about 35, reflected the ethnic diversity of the 50 countries it visited. In almost 200 years of commercial whaling, approximately 2,700 ships made 14,000 voyages, O’Farrell said.

The Morgan has undergone three major restorations, the first in the 1880s. At the completion of current repairs, it should retain about 10 percent of its original materials. The ship was pulled from the water last November and the restoration is expected to be completed by the summer of 2011.