https://www.afar.com/magazine/what-its-like-sailing-on-a-tall-ship-in-the-us
A historic experience? Yes, and lots of fun.
I looked into sailing on tall ships years ago. It was incredibly expensive as a guest, and hard as hell to get into as crew.
hard as hell to get into as crew.
I would assume it is the same as any merchant mariner. Lots of licensing and training.
Many European navies have these as training ships and it used to be quite common that you could sign up as a recruit and spend some time on board. Probably easier than becoming a trained crew otherwise.
Many accept volunteers for the enormous amount of shore side maintenance work, and I've known several people who parleyed that into (low) paying work.
I live in Sausalito, where the Matthew Turner is berthed, and was fortunate to watch it, as the Educational Tall Ship subject vessel, a few years ago; today I regularly watch it on the bay from my house. It is beautiful.