TAMPA BAY, Fla. — Alisha Bloodworth is a mast captain on the tall ship Elissa, one of seven tall ships coming together for the St. Petersburg Tall Ships Festival.

What You Need To Know

  • The St. Pete Tall Ships Festival will host a total of seven tall ships

  • The event is taking place in the Port of St. Pete through April 2

  • The festival features boats tours, cruises and yoga

  • One ship, the 1877 Elissa, is 110 feet tall and 205 feet long

Bloodworth directs crew members to carry out sailing commands — the mast captains are in red and the crew she directs wears blue.

“It’s a lot of responsibility — a little stress,” she said. “You get more and more used to it."

"Right — I mean she’s been sailing for so long," she added about her ship, the 1877 Elissa. "It holds up to a lot right — a lot of stress — a lot of tension.”

Since 1877, the Scottish-built ship has survived, and has been refurbished and cared for by a crew out of Galveston, Texas.

The ship is just over 100 feet high and 200 feet long, Bloodworth said.

On the ship, the cacophony of ropes on the three-mast ship are somehow wrangled into place and sometimes, through sheer human strength.

“We handle all of the lines here,” said Bloodworth, explaining on a ship like the Elissa, a rope is called a line.

While at sea, the crews have to work together to set the ship to sail, Bloodworth said.

“It’s a lot about team work right? You don’t set 19 sails on a 145-year-old tall ship by yourself,” she said.

Every time the ship changes directions, a carefully choreographed dance begins, Bloodworth explained — people repeating orders, pulling lines in unison, unfurling and furling sails.

“We like to make sure people get to experience that — see us all working together as a team,” she said.

And it’s not just the visitors aboard the Elissa — Bloodworth said there’s also a near constant trailing flotilla sailing along with the Elissa.

Bloodworth said the attention makes sense, as the three-mast ship is one of the oldest sailing vessels in the world.

“It’s just incredible to see the support to see all the tall ships parading around, and really kind of celebrating the preservation of the tall ship history and the culture that goes along with it,” she said.

A chemical engineer by training, Bloodworth said the camaraderie aboard the Elissa is what keeps her coming back.

“These people have really kind of become my family,” she said of her fellow crew mates. "Honestly, I showed up eight years ago never having sailed anything before — not even a small boat — and they taught me everything, and I just keep showing up.”