Blend modes to the rescue

I took this picture of tall ships off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia during a parade of ships.  Unfortunately, the parade occurred between 9am and 12 noon during the summer, and the sun was high in the sky.  That meant the lighting was harsh and contrasty, and the picture was, in my opinion, worthless.  To save it, I went to my 'cloud folder' and chose an attractive cloud suggesting an overcast sky.  Because tall ships have so much rigging and so many lines, it was impossible to cut out the subjects like I normally do.  The only way to make this work was to use one of the blend modes in Photoshop.  In this case, I used the multiply blend mode, and with some other work like lowering the opacity of the clouds I was able to blend the two pictures together to make the composite believable.