The training sailing ship "Gorch Fock" has left its home port of Kiel and is heading for the Canary Islands. On the return voyage via Valencia, Málaga and Brest, 220 officer candidates receive their basic maritime training in two cruises.
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As a seafarer, you don't want to have to look at these pictures, but as a chronicler of maritime events, you can't close your eyes to them. The Rio Guayas through the centre of Ecuador's port city of Guayaquil, home to 3 million people, can be a killer! At its narrowest point, a smart pedestrian bridge was built from the city to the green island of Santay in 2014, but in 2017 and 2018, two military units failed in their attempt to defy the fierce tidal current to catch the open passage. After the delicate-looking bridge had only recently been repaired, the Ecuadorian Navy asked the President of Ecuador via the Ministry of Defence to dismantle it again in mid-September.
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The opponents could not have been more dissimilar: a smart sail training ship similar to the GORCH FOCK and a highly motorised, semi-submersible drug smuggler! And yet the Ecuadorian three-masted barque GUAYAS managed the feat of intercepting and apprehending the drug-laden speedboat on its journey north. Sheer luck and bad luck helped the commander - on the one hand favourable winds and constant information about the change of situation from the American air surveillance of the anti-drug task force, on the other hand the failure of two of the three outboard engines and perhaps also the impressive silhouette of a three-master from a frog's-eye view. Even if the sailor could only run at 10 knots at best, the boat would have a clear advantage at 40 knots...
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From office to ministry... On 12 November 1955, the Bundeswehr was born with the handover of 101 certificates of appointment to the volunteers of the army, air force and navy. The then Minister of Defence, Theodor Blank, began preparations for the rearmament of the young Federal Republic of Germany in 1950 in the Blank Office with other members of the Himmerode Group of Experts. The Himmerode Memorandum is regarded as the basis from which ideas and the "Innere Führung" leadership concept for the formation of the Bundeswehr were taken and implemented. The Bundeswehr celebrated the 66th anniversary of its founding with several events throughout Germany. In Rostock city harbour, the air force presented itself alongside the "Patriot" air defence missile system...
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The Spanish navy is helping the banana growers on the south-west coast of La Palma who have been separated from the transshipment centre by the volcanic eruption. The dock landing ship "Castilla" is on its way to the island with four landing craft and helicopters.
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