A Sailing Frigate, the Havana Malecon & Port Avenue (33 pics)
Photo Feature by Ernesto Gonzalez Diaz
HAVANA TIMES – The sailing frigate Juan Sebastián de Elcano, is a training ship of the Spanish Navy, which made a visit to Havana between May 12 and 15. She is a brig-type schooner with four masts named Blanca, Almansa, Asturias and Nautilius, which are the names of the training ships that preceded it in the fleet of said navy.
Its name honors Juan Sebastián Elcano, an illustrious Spanish navigator, who, on the death of Ferdinand Magellan, assumed the captain’s role of the first expedition to circumnavigate the planet in 1522. Also, in honor of the navigator, it bears the coat of arms that was granted to his family by Emperor Charles I with the motto “Primus Circumdedisti Me”, “You were the first to circumnavigate me”.
It was built in Cádiz and launched on April 6, 1923, has a displacement of 2,900 tons, a length (length in terms of seamanship) of 113.1 meters with the bowsprit and a beam (width) of 13.1 meters. Her crew is made up of 197 men and women, of which 24 are officers, 22 non-commissioned officers, 146 sailors and 5 civilians and it has a capacity for 78 students.
Some of the photos we show were taken on May11th along the Malecon seawall avenue while the ship was waiting to be authorized to enter the port. Others were taken on Saturday the 14th when people came out to visit it at the port.
We accompany the images of the sailing frigate with some taken in the surroundings of where she is anchored and along the malecon.
