>But, short of signing aboard as a mate with one of the museums whose ships do still sail, I think visiting these ships is about as close as anyone can expect to come - and, either way, it's very much worth doing in its own right, for anyone who shares the interest.
Even then, on a museum ship, you're probably not going to be woken up, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Atlantic, to furl sails due to a storm. (Summer 1981, on the USCGC Eagle.)
Fair, I suppose I should've included Coast Guard OCS as an option for getting a sense of what Age of Sail sailing might have been like! I feel like that's a relatively extreme way of going about getting such experience, but if nothing else it'd show a creditable degree of dedication to the study.
Even then, on a museum ship, you're probably not going to be woken up, in the middle of the night, in the middle of the Atlantic, to furl sails due to a storm. (Summer 1981, on the USCGC Eagle.)