Spoiler: It doesn’t have to do with height.
When tall ships from around the world come sailing into Boston for Sail Boston 2026, you’ll know it. The dozens of vessels parading into the harbor won’t look like your ordinary sailboat, yacht, or ferry—they’ll be, well, tall.
But it turns out height isn’t the main identifier when it comes to tall ships. What makes a ship a tall ship is much less cut and dried.
“It’s a little bit of a philosophical question,” said Captain William Sabatini, interim captain of the Ernestina-Morrissey. Based at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, it’s the official state ship of Massachusetts.
First, Sabatini explained, the term comes from the 1902 John Masefield poem “Sea-Fever.”…