95th Training Cruise – ‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’.

The Spanish Navy training ship ‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’ set sail to conduct her 95th midshipmen training cruise. The ship will cross the Strait of Magellan for the sixteenth time.

The ship will visit the following ports: Tenerife, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Punta Arenas (Chile), Callao (Peru), Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), Puerto Limon (Costa Rica), Pensacola and New York (USA). She is scheduled to return to Cadiz on July 21st 2023.

On this occasion, 74 midshipmen have embarked in the second semester of their third year of education in the Naval Academy as part of their military career including subjects related to mechanical engineering and navigation. In addition, the students will receive both practical and theoretical classes on a series of technical, naval and cultural subjects. Apart from their professional training, they also build up close relationships thanks to the extraordinary atmosphere on board and enjoy the opportunity to foster specific virtues, principles and other naval customs.

The ‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’ is a brig-schooner which also performs as a ‘floating embassy’ thanks to the important diplomatic endeavors she conducts when the ship visits foreign ports. The ship welcomes local authorities and organizes an intense schedule of activities on board; but midshipmen, officers and crew members also pay official visits to institutional and cultural organizations of interest.

This year the ship has a complement of 167 people plus the 74 students that belong to the 425th promotion class of the General Corps of the Spanish Navy and the 155th promotion class of the Marine Corps.