Tall Ships St Pete

Last weekend, Ron and I went to St Petersburg with our friends for the Tall Ships festival, a 4-day exhibition of the ships participating in the 2023 Tall Ships Challenge. This year the Tall Ships Challenge was taking place in the Gulf of Mexico, with stops in St Petersburg, Galveston and Pensacola.

I love sailing ships because they are so beautiful and historical, but to tell the truth, I didn’t know much about them. What exactly is a tall ship? I did a little research before the festival to educate myself. I found out that tall ships are large, traditionally rigged sailboats that have at least two masts. They can be categorized by size or by the number of masts and type of sails. For example, schooners have at least two masts with the foremast shorter than the main mast. Full-rigged ships and barques both have at least three masts, but on a full-rigged ship all the sails are square-rigged (which means the sails run perpendicular to the length of the boat) while on a barque, the aft mast is fore-and-aft rigged.

Our tickets to the event allowed us to go aboard four tall ships. The first ship was the 1877 Barque Elissa, one of the oldest ships sailing today. She was rescued from a scrap yard in Greece in 1987 and brought to Galveston Texas where she now serves as a floating museum.

1877 Barque Elissa

Next was the Ernestina-Morrissey, built in 1894. She was used for arctic expeditions, and in 1940 she sailed within 600 miles of the north pole, the furthest north any sailing ship has ever reached.

Ernestina-Morrissey

The last two ships were replicas. The Pride of Baltimore II was built in 1988 as a memorial to the Pride of Baltimore, which tragically sank in a storm in 1986. The Nao Trinidad was built in Spain in 2018. It was a replica of the flagship of the Magellan-Elcano expedition, the first voyage around the world between 1519 and 1522. We were able to tour the lower decks of the Nao Trinidad and get a glimpse of what life was like onboard a ship in the 16th century.

Nao Trinidad

Pride of Baltimore II

Besides the four ships that we could board, there were three smaller schooners giving sailing tours around the bay. One of these was the When and If, which we’d seen on a sunset sail in Key West a couple of years ago. The When and If, was built for General George S. Patton, who’d said “When the war is over, and if I live through it, Bea and I are going to sail her around the world.” Sadly, General Patton died before he got to sail the world, but maybe one day his ship will be able to fulfill his dream.

It was a great way to spend the morning - exploring the majestic and historic ships, talking to the crew and learning more about our seafaring past. I just wish that I could have seen the ships out on the water. If the tall ships return to Tampa Bay, I hope I can be there when they sail under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge with all their sails raised.

When and If

Travel tips: After leaving St Petersburg, the tall ships will travel to Galveston (April 13-16) and then Pensacola (April 27-30).