Work began yesterday to shore up the hull of the aging and ailing Falls of Clyde — a National Historic Landmark and the only surviving fully rigged, four-masted sailing ship in the world.

The ship is moored at Honolulu Harbor's Pier 7, and is an icon of the Bishop Museum's Hawai'i Maritime Center.

Blair Collis, senior vice president and chief operating officer for the museum, cautioned that the ship's future remains in doubt. A complete restoration of the venerable vessel would cost tens of millions of dollars, and the museum has neither the resources nor the expertise to complete such a task, he said.

"We do need to address the safety issue of the deteriorating rig," said Collis. "This certainly doesn't translate to the (restoration) project. This one portion only addresses a part of the rigging so that the ship could be moved into dry dock for restoration, or to another location."

Collis said the 130-year-old ship, built in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1878, has been off limits to the public since last year, and it continues to pose a safety hazard to museum employees.

"It's a liability to staff that work on and around Falls," he said.

Workers from Brion Toss Yacht Riggers Inc. of Port Townsend, Wash., began preliminary work yesterday, and they expect to remove four spars, topmasts and other riggings, yards, jib booms and main side supports starting next week. That will allow the crew to reinforce the hull with steel to stabilize the ship, he said.

"We plan to eventually move the ship and wanted to be sure that it could be relocated without further compromising its condition," Timothy E. Johns, president and chief executive officer of Bishop Museum, said in a news release yesterday.

The release went on to say that the Bishop Museum launched a worldwide search this year "for a new benefactor for the Falls of Clyde through noted marine surveyor and ship consultant Joseph W. Lombardi and his company, Ocean Technical Services. Lombardi contacted more than 500 historic ship organizations and individuals who might have an interest in acquiring and restoring the world's last remaining four-masted, iron-hulled, full-rigged ship."

However, Collis said nothing concrete has come of that effort.

"The issue with any historic ship is the magnitude of cost involved in maintaining a vessel of this type," said Collis. "That price every year goes up, as you could expect with the price of everything. So, not only is there a restoration cost in excess of $30 million, but the (estimated) increased cost of maintenance ... would be triple what we're paying right now.

"And that, unfortunately, is a financial burden that is beyond our limits."

Because of the rapidly deteriorating condition of the ship, maintenance costs that could reach an estimated $1 million a year, and an out-of-reach restoration price tag, the museum has set a mid-2008 deadline to find a new benefactor for the Falls of Clyde, the news release said.

This is not the first time the Falls of Clyde has been in peril. Back in 1963, following hundreds of voyages under sail to every continent, plans called for scuttling the dilapidated vessel as part of a breakwater at Vancouver, British Columbia. Only an all-out citizen rescue campaign — spearheaded by Bob Krauss, the late Honolulu Advertiser columnist — saved the only surviving original member of the Matson fleet, and returned it to waters it once sailed under the Hawaiian flag.

The Falls of Clyde, then fully restored, opened to the public at Honolulu Harbor as a floating museum in 1968.