Tall ships convene at various ports throughout North American and Europe during the warm months, and it's a wonderful photo opportunity when they do. I photographed them at Norfolk, Virginia a few years ago during the 'Parade of Ships'. This is when they are under full sail, a I hired a fishing boat to cruise around the ships to give me all the compositional options I wanted. The problem, though, was that they sailed between 9am and noon, and the light was terrible. I had to use Photoshop to replace the sky and to introduce other effects that mitigated the harsh light from the direct sunlight.
You can find a schedule of the Parade of Ships online.
The settings for this perfect were 1/1000th, f/7.1, 100 ISO, 70-200mm lens, hand held.