A Different Kind of Cruising for a Californian

Krista Swedberg caught the sailing bug early. Starting out as a little girl aboard her parents’ Santa Cruz-based Islander 40, she remembers trips every summer south to Monterey and north into the Delta. “My first few summers were spent in a five-gallon bucket on hot days up the river, which apparently kept me very entertained” she remembers.

In 2001, the Swedberg family participated in the Baja Ha-Ha, which led to several winters of cruising in Mexico.

With the sailing/cruising hook firmly set, Krista got a captain’s license when she was 19, which led to a position with Pacific Yachting and Sailing, a Santa Cruz-based sailing school and charter company. She did varnishing on the side. Glad to be back outside, sailing and working on boats, before long, she was itching to cross oceans again. For this young cruiser, that led, in a rather circuitous manner, to tall ships.

At the suggestion of co-workers, she sent letters out to various tall-ship programs. One encouraging response came from Soren Larsen, a Danish-built brigantine currently operating out of Sydney Harbour. Krista booked a one-way ticket and hasn’t looked back.

She is currently sailing aboard the 125-ft gaff ketch Tecla, a converted herring drifter built in the Netherlands in 1915. The ship is owned by a family of four professional sailors, and though technically still homeported in the Netherlands, the ship has been constantly on the move, hosting up to 12 guests and specializing in sailing adventures to the far corners of the globe. Tecla has done one circumnavigation already (in 2014), and before Krista got on in Nome, the ship had done an east-west transit of the Northwest Passage.

With stops in Dutch Harbor and a surprise visit to Krista’s hometown of Santa Cruz, Tecla is currently en route to the Galapagos. After that, it’s south to new adventures, including rounding Cape Horn. By next summer, Krista says the ship will complete a circumnavigation of the Americas.

Look for more of Krista’s tall-ship story in the January issue of Latitude.