The Spanish Navy’s iconic training ship, Juan Sebastián de Elcano, known as the “Ambassador and Seafarer,” will dock in Port of Spain from February 16th to 21st.
In a statement, the Embassy of Spain said the ship is scheduled to arrive on the morning of Monday, February 16th, and will remain in the city until the early morning of Saturday, February 21st.
Built at the Echevarrieta y Larrinaga shipyards in Cádiz, the Juan Sebastián de Elcano was launched on March 5th, 1927, and delivered to the Navy on August 17th, 1928. It has spent nearly one hundred years at sea, sailing almost 1.9 million nautical miles across all the world’s oceans and calling at ports in more than 70 countries.
The Embassy of Spain stated that the Juan Sebastián de Elcano began its 98th Midshipmen Training Cruise on January 10th this year, departing from Cádiz with 73 midshipmen from the 428th Spanish Navy graduating class and the 158th Marine Corps graduating class. The training cruise will make eleven port calls, nine of them abroad. Following its stay in Port of Spain, the ship will continue to San Juan, Puerto Rico; Santo Domingo; Veracruz; Puerto Limón; Curaçao; Galveston; Norfolk; Baltimore; and New York before returning to Cádiz.
During the training cruise, the ship carries out two main missions:
- Comprehensive training of midshipmen (nautical, military, social and human) as part of their third year in the Naval Academy’s five-year training programme.
- Support for Spain’s foreign policy and diplomatic presence in the ports visited.
The ship will be open to the public at the following times while docked in Port of Spain:
- Monday, February 16th: 4pm – 6pm
- Tuesday, February 17th: 11am – 1pm and 3pm – 6pm
- Wednesday, February 18th: 11am – 1pm and 3pm – 6pm
The Juan Sebastián de Elcano is named after the Spanish sailor who completed the first circumnavigation of the world in 1522, finishing the expedition that began under Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, who was sailing in the service of the Spanish Crown and died during the voyage. Spain’s King Carlos I later granted Elcano a coat of arms bearing the motto Primus circumdedisti me — Latin for “You first circumnavigated me.”
