Friday, April 10, 2009

Spanish ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano (1927)

While reading the Houston Chronicle on Saturday, April 4th, I saw an article about the Juan Sebastián de Elcano.  The Spanish Navy training ship would be docked at Pier 21 in the Port of Galveston this weekend.  I called my friend Mark and we made the trip to Galveston for a free tour.  It is an amazing sailing ship.  Mark and I both were very impressed with the ship and the way the Spanish Navy has kept her.  The crew is made of some officers and mostly midshipmen training to become officers.  They are at sea for at least 6 months before heading back home to Spain.  The next stop is Columbia.  From there they will travel some more in South America before heading to Cuba, Florida and finally home to Spain.  If you like historic ships or tall ships, she is worth the effort of a tour if she comes to a port near you.

I have included info from wikipedia, the handouts and my pictures below. 

Enjoy!

Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia about Juan Sebastián de Elcano.

The Juan Sebastián Elcano is a training ship for the Royal Spanish Navy. She is a four-masted topsail, steel-hulled schooner. At 113 metres (370 feet) long, she is the third-largest Tall Ship in the world.

She is named after Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano, captain of Ferdinand Magellan's last exploratory fleet. The ship also carries the de Elcano coat of arms, which was granted to the family by Emperor Charles I following Elcano's return in 1522 from Magellan's global expedition. The coat of arms is a terraqueous globe with the motto "Primus Circumdedisti Me" (meaning: "First to circumnavigate me").

The Juan Sebastián de Elcano was built in 1927 in Cadiz, Spain, and her hull was designed by the Echevarrieta y Larriñaga shipyard in Cadiz. Her plans were also used twenty-five years later to construct her Chilean sail training vessel sister ship Esmeralda in 1952-1954.

Spanish ship Juan Sebastián Elcano (1927) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a scan of the information the Spanish Navy was handing out on the tour.

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