Category: Shipping

SPAIN: Sailing training ship JUAN SEBASTIAN DE ELCANO leaves port

SPAIN: Sailing training ship JUAN SEBASTIAN DE ELCANO leaves port

Posted by | 14 Dec 2020 | , , | 0

The training ships' trips abroad also look very different in times of coronavirus. On 24 August, the training sailing ship JUAN SEBASTIAN DE ELCANO set sail from a quarantine zone in the port of Cadiz in south-west Spain on its 93rd training voyage. The special thing about it was that it was not just the fifth circumnavigation of the almost hundred-year-old four-masted topsail schooner. This round-the-world voyage is being organised to mark the 500th anniversary of the voyage of discovery of its namesake, who completed the voyage started by Magellan with five ships and 270 men after three years - with just 18 men and one ship. Times have changed. Before the expiry date...

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CHINA: 170 days at sea without land contact

CHINA: 170 days at sea without land contact

Posted by | 11 Dec 2020 | , , | 0

Since December 2008, the Chinese People's Liberation Navy has been participating in international maritime defence operations in the Gulf of Aden. The last contingent, consisting of the destroyer Taiyuan (Luyang III class, type 052D), the frigate Jingzhou (Jiangkai II, type 054A) and the supply ship Chaohu, returned to its home port of Zhoushan south of Shanghai in mid-October. In the previous six months, the convoy had escorted almost fifty predominantly Chinese cargo ships in the crisis region, travelling 100,000 nautical miles as a trio. Since leaving Zhoushan at the end of April this year, the three ships are said to have had no land contact whatsoever to avoid any possibility of infection: 170 days at sea! Not...

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CHILE: Divine service on two sailing school ships

CHILE: Divine service on two sailing school ships

Posted by | 11 Dec 2020 | , , | 0

High noon, 20th October, Magellan Strait in rocky Tierra del Fuego. At one of the narrowest points in the channel, two sail training ships meet that could be sister ships. Both topsail schooners, the Chilean Esmeralda and the Spanish Juan Sebastian De Elcano, originally come from the naval stronghold of Cadiz. The Chilean ship is a replica that was actually intended for the Spanish navy before it was realised that a training ship was also sufficient. Today, 500 years after the first circumnavigation by Magellan and his successor Elcano, both tall ships met in the Bahia de Fortescue and commemorated the brave explorers in a joint service. Where Brother Pedro...

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Frigate Hamburg in troubled waters

Posted by | 9 Dec 2020 | , | 0

At the beginning of August, the frigate HAMBURG left for the Mediterranean for almost five months. The crew is facing a tricky mission, which will most likely not involve any shore leave due to the coronavirus. The German Navy had previously participated in Operation Irini with a P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and carried out sixteen missions in this context. As a result of the Berlin Libya Conference in January 2020, the EU found a way to carry out a mission in the central Mediterranean at the end of March. This involves monitoring and enforcing the UN-backed arms embargo against Libya. Political agreement on the approach - the operation is seen by some as a lever against Turkish efforts to gain a foothold in Libya - proved difficult. In the end, a surveillance mission with ships, aeroplanes and satellites was agreed. In order to be able to react flexibly to the arrival of migrants, the commander of Eunavfor Med Irini can decide to position the units away from the transport routes between Libya and Italy. Overall, the operational area has been shifted further eastwards - to the eastern part of the central Mediterranean. The operation is also intended to help disrupt the business model of human trafficking networks. Irini is also intended to prevent the illegal export of oil from Libya. From the legacy of the Eunavfor Med Operation Sophia, the training of the Libyan coastguard and navy became part of the catalogue of tasks for Irini. However, this...

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