The Mission to Seafarers, founded in 1856, is an international organisation that offers support to the seafaring community. Recently, at its mission in Melbourne, Australia, a century's worth of records were discovered, concealed in boxes under its theatre stage. These included annual reports, scrapbooks, diaries, letters, visitors log books, newsletters, artefacts and an array of evocative photographs. Besides providing rich insights into the history of seafaring, of Melbourne as a port city and of the Mission itself, the discovery of this extraordinary resource produced profound non-representational affective, emotional and sensory intensities for those connected with the Mission. Heightened anticipation about the unknown and unexplored stories that might lie within escalated as we worked to catalogue the material. As enticing fragments were uncovered and connections made, this feeling intensified. This paper reveals the affective qualities of the archives and histories of connections and encounters that are so evocatively felt in the Mission. The retrieved archive supplements the already atmospheric space of the ship-themed Mission, a realm replete with eccentric artefacts and eclectic traces, as well as with seafarers and staff. I register this broader affective context here, while also recounting my own sensorial entanglements with the archival material. I conclude by elaborating upon a process through which I became yet more intimately connected to the Mission by contributing to this emotionally saturated archive. This involved retrieving a recently found, long-lost object and returning it to its rightful place amidst great excitement, wonder and a few tears, an object that has subsequently become a symbolically charged element within the Mission's archive.

海员宣教团成立于1856年，是一个向海员界提供支持的国际组织。最近，在澳大利亚墨尔本执行任务时，发现了一个世纪的唱片，藏在剧院舞台下的盒子里。其中包括年度报告，剪贴簿，日记，信件，访客日志，新闻通讯，人工制品和一系列令人回味的照片。除了提供丰富的航海历史，墨尔本作为港口城市以及特派团本身的深刻见解之外，这一非凡资源的发现还为与特派团有联系的人们带来了深刻的，非代表性的情感，情感和感觉强度。在我们对材料进行分类的过程中，人们对未知和未探索故事的期望越来越高。当发现诱人的碎片并建立联系时，这种感觉加剧了。本文揭示了特派团中令人回味的档案和情感联系与遭遇的情感品质。检索到的档案补充了以船为主题的特派团已经是大气的空间，这个领域充满了古怪的手工艺品和折衷的痕迹，以及海员和工作人员。我在这里介绍了这种更广泛的情感背景，同时也叙述了我自己与档案材料的感官纠缠。最后，我将详细阐述一个过程，通过这一过程，我将为这个令人心动的档案馆做出贡献，从而与特派团建立更加密切的联系。这涉及到检索一个最近发现的，久违的物体，并在激动中​​将其返回到应有的位置，