The ‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’ will visit eight countries in 2025 with the Princess of Asturias on board

The Diplomat The training ship ‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’, the Spanish Navy’s flagship training cruiser, will undertake a new five-month voyage between January and July 2025, in which it will travel to eight countries and in which it will have the presence of the Princess of Asturias, Leonor de Borbón, as a midshipman. This was announced last week during an event at the Naval Museum in Madrid on the occasion of the presentation of the 17th training cruise of this brig-schooner of the Navy, which was attended by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, and the Chief of Staff of the Navy (AJEMA), Admiral General Antonio Piñeiro. The voyage will begin on January 11, 2025 in Cadiz, on a 17,000-nautical-mile journey that will take it through eight countries on the American continent and six Spanish cities. From Cadiz, the ship will sail to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Salvador de Bahía (Brazil), Montevideo (Uruguay), Punta Arenas and Valparaíso (Chile), El Callao (Peru), Panama City, Cartagena de Indias and Santa Marta (Colombia), Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic) and New York, before returning to Spain and visiting the ports of Gijón, Ferrol, Marín and again Cadiz, on July 21, 2025. “This training cruise has a special significance, since the Princess of Asturias, Leonor de Borbón, will be part of the crew as a first-year midshipman at the Military Naval School for five months, continuing her military, naval and seafaring training,” reported the Ministry of Defense. In Robles' opinion, this trip “will undoubtedly be an unforgettable experience” for the heir to the Throne. The event was attended by the Spanish ambassadors in some of the countries that the ship will visit, such as Chile, Colombia, Peru and Panama, as well as the United States chargé d'affaires in Spain and the mayors of Gijón, Cádiz and Ferrol. The ship, which will have a crew of 20 officers, 20 non-commissioned officers, 130 military personnel from the Navy and Troop ranks, and two civilian teachers, “also functions as a floating embassy, contributing to supporting Spain's foreign action in those countries and foreign ports to which it goes and being a first-rate tool in defence diplomacy,” the Ministry continued. “There is a magic word that defines this ship, which is to be a first-class ambassador of Spain, a country so close to all those in which the cruise ship will call,” declared the minister. For his part, Admiral General Antonio Piñeiro also referred to the training ship as a “floating ambassador of our country” and indicated that, in addition to learning navigation, the 140-day stay at sea seeks the growth of the midshipmen in terms of human and cultural training, always based on the values of “comradeship, improvement and collective work.” “Coexistence, work and study are the three pillars of the stay on the training ship,” he said. Captain Luis Carreras-Presas, commander of the training ship, who presented the details of this cruise, assured that its main mission is to contribute to the comprehensive training of the midshipmen, 76 on this occasion, belonging to the 427th promotion of the General Corps and 157th of the Marine Infantry. According to the commander, the stay on the ship is a “theoretical and practical training immersion that allows them to learn up to 18 subjects of very different nature and training,” all of this “without forgetting coexistence, until we become a big family.”

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