Viktor Crondahl

Viktor Crondahl was the son of a merchant in Karlskrona. As a student, he competed in the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm and placed fourth in the plain high diving behind three other Swedes, who claimed all the medals in a clean sweep. One year later, in 1913, he followed his teammate Ernst Brandsten and emigrated to the United States.

Crondahl joined Brandsten in Palo Alto, California, USA and helped him build the sailboat Fearless with an auxiliary gas-powered engine. He became a member of the California Yacht Club in San Francisco, commanded the boat on its journeys from there to Alaska, where it was used to chart the Alaskan coast. He repeated the trip to Juneau, Alaska, in 1916 with Ernst Brandsten, where he later settled for about three decades, working for the Juneau Lumber Mills. It was in Alaska that he married Dora Louise (née Irish), and together they had three sons. In his later years, he moved to Seattle, Washington.