Sail San Francisco (founded and operated by Alison Healy in 1999) hosted over 40 port visits for international class A tall ships in San Francisco, Monterey, Los Angeles, San Diego, Honolulu, and Anchorage. During this time, she had several repeat visitors, largely due to California’s proximity to their country.

We salute and offer hospitality to any foreign educational sailing ship, but these are the tall ships which have most frequently sailed to San Francisco.

Tall Ship of the Mexican Navy

Home Port: Acapulco, Mexico

Cuauhtémoc, a three masted barque, was designed in the 1930’s style of Sagres, Gorch Fock and USCGC Eagle and was built like them in Bilbao, Spain and launched in 1982. Her sister ships, also from Bilbao, are Colombia’s Gloria, Ecuador’s Guayas and Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar. She has sailed over 500,000 nautical miles during her 42 years of service as a goodwill ambassador. She carries a compliment of 186 officers and crew, and 90 cadets.

Click here to learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_Cuauhtémoc_(BE01)

Tall Ship of the Ecuadorian Navy

Home Port: Guyaquil, Ecuador

Guayas, a three masted barque is sister ship to Mexico’s Cuauhtémoc, Colombia’s Gloria, and Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar and was built in Bilbao, Spain, launching in 1976. She has sailed over 500,000 nautical miles during her 46 years of service as a goodwill ambassador. She carries a complement of 155 officers and crew and 80 cadets.

Click here to learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAE_Guayas_(BE-21)

Tall Ship of the Colombian Navy

Home Port: Cartegena, Colombia

Gloria is a three masted barque, is a sister ship to Mexico’s Cuauhtémoc, Ecuador’s Guayas, and Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar which was also built in Bilbao, Spain, launching in 1969. She has sailed over 500,000 nautical miles during her 54 years of service as a goodwill ambassador. She carries a complement of 150 officers and cadets, and 69 crew members.

Click here to learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_Gloria

Tall Ship of the Peruvian Navy

Home Port: Lima, Peru

Union, a new comer to the scene is the largest sailing ship in South America. She was built between by SIMA in Peru and launchd in 2014. She is a four masted barque which is composed of 38 steel modules. Her length is 378′ making her approximately 100′ longer than the four sister ships previously mentioned. Union had the advantage of instruction from the Spanish navy, sending personnel to train on other tall ships while others were sent to take part in maintenance and repair on Colombian tall ship Gloria. Union’s first cruise was in 2016. Unique to Union is their proud promotion of Peruvian products and tourist destinations on board in every port.

Click here to learn more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAP_Uni%C3%B3n#