Adventure, world, seas ... the epic story of "Sebastian de Elcano"

(CNN Spanish) - From afar and docked at the port of Getxo, on the Biscay coast, Juan Sebastián de Elcano is hardly a shadow of what it really is.

Naked, without the sail, barely able to appreciate his helmet hidden behind the pier, only the huge Spanish flag at its stern testifies to his pride.

And the truth is that this schooner brig, launched in Cádiz in 1927, is the oldest of the Spanish Navy, one of the oldest navies and during the 16th and 17th centuries the most powerful army in the world.

Sebastian Elcano silhouette crossing the ocean. (Credit: Navigation of Juan Sebastián de Elcano).

When he arrived in Getxo, the ship docked at its last to last port before returning to its base in Cádiz, in southern Spain, to complete 91 training cruises. The latter had left on January 13 from that city of Cadiz. 250 people on board, including officers, non-commissioned officers, capes and sailors who had already sailed more than 19,000 nautical miles in the first six months of 2019, that is, more than 35,000 kilometers.

During this trip they have visited 14 ports in 8 different countries, such as San Juan, Puerto Rico; Cartagena de Indias, in Colombia; Veracruz, in Mexico; Boston, in the USA; Lisbon, Portugal, and Kiel, in Germany.

A day before my visit, the ship had docked in Guetaria, where the reception was spectacular, and that is, just about 89 kilometers from Getxo, on the Cantabrian coast, is where the sailor who gives name to the school ship was born and the man who, together with Magellan, went around the world in 1522.

Already on board, I receive first Ignacio Grueiro, ship lieutenant who is responsible for the public relations of the boat. He is an affable, friendly man, who introduces me to the ship and its protagonists, Captain Ignacio Paz, the first machine end Tatiana Conesa, and the midshipman Manuel Cervera, although as the captain will tell me later, everyone here is equal.

On the deck of the ship, tables are being prepared with a snack for local authorities. On each cruise around the world, the brig navigates 75% of the time, and the rest arrives in ports and acts as a kind of embassy in the country, although this time it is at home. Later, these local authorities arrive in their cars at the port although they have to walk the final section to the dock where the ship is docked. Next to the access gateway to the ship, two vehicles of the Civil Guard and the Basque Autonomous Police are watching and, in the water, a Customs patrol rounds the brig.

The passion for the sea

Grueiro tells me: "My love of the sea comes to me since I was a child, I am from a seafaring city, from El Ferrol, and besides, my life has always been linked to the sea." His father served in the Spanish Navy, his brother and brother-in-law are also military. This man likes to sail, sail, surf, and says he could not live without the sea.

Ignacio Grueiro, ship lieutenant in Getxo, on July 8, 2019. (Credit Miguel A. Antoñanzas).

That sea that takes them to far corners of the world, but that could also take them to the ground. The captain of the ship, Ignacio Paz, says that “the sea is still a marine, adverse environment and, at times, can be hostile. Never lose respect. ” The ally that the sailors who accompanied Captain Elcano never had are the weather forecasts. "We can know when the bad sea comes, and therefore we can prepare the ship conveniently to weather the storm," says Paz, who says that "the best storm is the one that is avoided." And on this last trip they had several days of bad sea. When that happens, on deck there is only the indispensable staff, in fact the captain recites a saying that explains that precaution over the years, “Layer candles, sailor to the hammock, which means that when the storm is hard , where it is best is inside the ship ”.

But despite the risk of a capricious sea, the crew of the ship claim to love the sea.

Says Corporal Tatiana Conesa, 36. His father also serves in the Navy, and he always instilled in them the sea, "I can't separate myself from the sea," he says, adding that "I needed him since I was little, I love his bravery, his tranquility, his sunrises, that smell he has, I need to have the sea next to me. ”

First place of machines Tatiana Conesa, in Getxo. (Credit Miguel A. Antoñanzas).

And it has it next to it, many hours, days, months, exactly 6 months, which is what each cruise lasts from when it leaves the port of Cádiz until it returns to the same port. Each cruise has different routes, some go around the world. During that time, the ship becomes a naval school of instruction for the midshipmen, they are instructed in a training not only marine, but also military, technical and physical.

A course at sea

In Spain, the career of an officer of the Navy has a duration of five years, and some sailors may be lucky to make the third year of the race aboard the Juan Sebastián de Elcano. Here the midshipmen are tanned with traditional navigation, which depends less on technology and more on classic measuring devices used by old sailors. They are sailing lessons, astronomy, meteorology and of course military discipline and knowledge, such as amphibious tactics.

“We have traveled the world visiting countless countries and meeting interesting people,” says midshipman Manuel Cervera. “We are first class midshipmen, and we are third year students of the Naval Military School. There we studied five years, a degree in Mechanical Engineering, taught by the University of Vigo, in Galicia, apart from all the military instruction given to us by the school's teachers ”.

The midshipman Manuel Cervera. (Credit Miguel A. Antoñanzas).

“The function of the midshipmen on board is to occupy the positions that we will occupy in the units of the Spanish fleet in the future, these positions are a machine guard officer, bridge guard officer or meteorological guard officer”

About 70 Spanish midshipmen were enrolled on this cruise ship, which for 15 months traveled about 15,500 nautical miles (about 28,700 km), visiting 14 ports in 8 countries.

The flagship of the Spanish Navy

Dozens of ships accompany Sebastián Elcano in his departure. (Credit: Navigation of Juan Sebastián de Elcano).

This four-mast iron and steel hull brig was built at the Echevarrieta and Larrinaga shipyards in Cádiz between 1925 and 1927.

The ship, which was to be called Minerva, was finally baptized as Juan Sebastián de Elcano, the Basque captain who achieved the first round the world, 500 years ago.

The ship, finally launched on March 5, 1927, then cost some 7,569,794 pesetas, whose change in dollars of the time was a little more than US $ 1,211,167, which to the current change would amount to almost 18 million dollars.

The first round the world of the new ship began in August 1928 and toured several ports, including Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Sydney, San Francisco, Havana and New York.

Elcano view of seagull, in tropical waters. (Credit: Navigation of Juan Sebastián de Elcano).

Since 1933 in the Alcazar de la Guleta, there is a plaque with the Latin inscription: "Tu Primus Circundedisti Me," or "You were the first to circumnavigate me." This phrase is taken from the motto and shield that King Carlos I gave to the family of Captain Elcano after the expedition that went around the world half a millennium ago.

During the Spanish Civil War, the ship remained moored in Cádiz, barely sailing and during World War II, the government of the dictator Francisco Franco painted the national flag on his helmet to prevent the brig from being attacked by countries at war. Spain was supposedly neutral although Franco maintained close relations with the Nazi regime. The ship was also without sailing in 1956 and 1978 for various repairs, in fact in its more than 90 years of history, the ship has undergone several reforms, and the majority of the five most extensive occurred in the 2000s.

The brig, according to the information of the Spanish Navy, has traveled all the seas, arriving in more than 70 different countries. He has managed to cross the Atlantic alone with his sails up to seven times, with a maximum speed of up to 17 knots, about 30 kilometers per hour.

Captain

Elcano captain Ignacio Paz on July 8, 2019. (Credit Miguel A. Antoñanzas).

The captain of Juan Sebastián de Elcano during the last cruises, Ignacio Paz, is a thin, fast man, in his movements and in his answers. He moves agilely through the deck and during the interview, ask the question you ask, he answers you in a fast, clear, concise and brief way, as if giving an order that you have to understand quickly.

Born in 1966 in the Galician port of El Ferrol, in Galicia, he studied at the well-known Maritime Military School of Marin, and since graduation, he has been sailing for more than 15 years in different not only Spanish vessels, also of the North Atlantic Organization , NATO.

He has been an operations officer of the NATO Group of Frigates and field assistant to the kings Juan Carlos I and Felipe VI.

Unlike many officers, his family does not come from a seafaring line except his father, who was the first to join the Navy, and “we have lived since childhood, I was 16 years old and I felt that call for the Navy and I had the luck of opposing and entering ”.

When he navigates overseas instructional cruises, his job is also that of a kind of ambassador of Spain, “to support the action of the State abroad, to know those countries, those cultures, to strengthen ties of union and, of course, to be meeting point of the Spanish residents there ”.

These types of contacts are often made on board the ship, without a doubt a spectacular setting, in receptions for local authorities of the country they visit and also of the Spanish immigrant community. “We receive the Spanish residents, to recover the sensations of Spain, some have been away from our country for many years, we offer a dedicated reception for them and we also offer the flag swearing, which is the most military and the most endearing thing we can offer aboard Juan Sebastián Elcano, ”he says.

Juan Sebastián de Elcano moored to port. (Credit Miguel A. Antoñanzas).

He assures that the ship has different corners that he likes, such as the government bridge, where “they spend many hours sailing and anywhere that you have contact with the equipment, with the equipment, either in machines, or in maneuver,” but he admits where he spends more time is in his cabin with the computer, "enslaved to the mails, to the messages, to the most bureaucratic administrative work."

The majesty of the ship amazes people on land, but also seafarers, the captain recalls that “entering last year in Buenos Aires, in Puerto Madero, a port quite complicated to enter, we were going with a practical Argentinean in a complicated maneuver , and at the critical moment of the berthing I look to the right and I find the practical recording with a mobile and he says: 'Commander is that I have never been in such a beautiful ship and I am recording it for my children'. And I asked him to record later that he would first devote himself to the maneuver of the ship. ” The captain passed over the ship when he arrived in Cádiz this summer, and will now be commanded by the frigate captain Santiago de Colsa.

500 years around the world

"But your High Majesty will know what we most estimate and fear is that we have discovered and rounded all the roundness of the world, going to the west and coming to the east", this is what Juan Sebastián Elcano wrote to the Spanish monarch after manage to go around the world.

Letter from Juan Sebastián Elcano (Credit: Ministry of Culture and Sports / Spanish Cultural Action).

Sebastián Elcano, which bears his name, is one of the ships that participates in the events organized by the Government of Spain on the V Centenary of the first round the world, in fact he plans to make his eleventh round the world between 2020 and 2021 .

500 years ago, five ships with 239 men departed from Seville in search of a new route of spices, the famous Moluccan Islands, located south of the Philippines and west of Papua. The expedition was commanded by the Portuguese navigator Fernando de Magallanes and financed in part by the Spanish king Carlos I. The purpose of it was not to go around the world, but to reach the so-called islands of spices, the so-called Moluccas, to be able to trade with this product so appreciated in 16th-century Europe, spices such as cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Portrait of Carlos I (Credit: Ministry of Culture and Sports / Spanish Cultural Action).

On that trip, the five ships faced endless dangers: storms and blizzards, extreme temperatures, very cold when they crossed what is now the Strait of Magellan, attacks by natives and riots but, above all, what they suffered most was Hunger and thirst. Scurvy was rampant, caused by the lack of vitamin C in the absence of fruits and vegetables caused swelling and bleeding of the gums, muscle aches, bleeding and weakening. During the crossing, already in Asia, Magellan died during a confrontation with indigenous people. And he was not the only one who lost his life on this expedition. It is estimated that at least 142 crew members died, the rest, or deserted before, returning to Spain, or stayed in some of the lands visited.

On September 6, 1522, Nao Victoria returned with only 18 men to the port of Sanlucar de Barrameda, in Cádiz, including Captain Juan Sebastián de Elcano.

Relationship of people embarked on naos. (Credit: Ministry of Culture and Sports / Spanish Cultural Action).