January 11, 2025 is a date marked in red on Princess Leonor’s calendar. That day, the heiress, just like her father in 1977, will board the Navy training ship, the Juan Sebastián Elcano, to share five months of navigation with her fellow midshipmen. In all, more than 17,000 nautical miles circuits, 140 days of navigation at sea and stopovers in eight countries: Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Panama, Colombia, Dominican Republic and United States.
The princess entered the Marín Naval School last August to complete her second year of military training. After a few months of training, Doña Leonor and her companions will begin one of their most important stages as students of the Naval Academy: they will board the Juan Sebastián Elcano as midshipmen of the training cruise XCVII.
The trip will leave on January 11 from Cádiz and will last six months, until July 21, although the princess will miss the last return trip because from New York He will return by plane to Spain. During this month when his companions cross the Atlantic again, Leonor will board a frigate to continue his maritime and naval training. Despite everything, he will join his companions in Gijón on July 7 to make the last journey with them to Marín, with a stopover beforehand in Ferrol.
All Navy Naval Academy students board the Elcano each year as part of their training. The ship also contributes to the State’s external action with diplomatic activities in the ports where it docks during the voyage. A “floating embassy” of Spain, as defined by the Chief of Naval Staff (Ajema), Admiral General Antonio Piñeiro.
Wind in favor
During its XCVII cruise, the ship, with Leonor as honorary midshipman, will make its first stops in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, first six days of navigation that help students adapt to sailing. From there, it will take almost a month of navigation (22 days at sea) until reaching the Brazilian port of Salvador de Bahía, where it will dock on February 14. A journey that they will attempt to complete under sail, taking advantage of the wind and facing the “equatorial calms” which will put their know-how to the test.
From there it will sail to Montevideo (Uruguay) and will then begin one of the most delicate and important moments of the journey, which will consist of crossing the Strait of Magellan to dock at Punta Arenas, known as the port at the end of the world because it is located at the southern tip of Chile .
On March 23, the schooner brig will resume sailing north along the west coast of South America to Valparaíso (Chile) and El Callao, Peru. The Elcano will then cross the Suez Canal, with stops in Panama and Cartagena (Colombia) before resuming its route north to the island of Santo Domingo. From there it will continue to New York, where the princess will disembark to fly to Spain.
Ajema recalls that the Elcano was launched in 1927 and has since sailed around the world eleven times, imitating the feat started by Ferdinand Magellan and completed by the Spanish sailor. During these almost a hundred years, it has trained dozens of generations of sailors. Practical navigation courses are complemented by demanding academic training on board, although Admiral Piñeiro acknowledged that some of the most important lessons the midshipmen will learn will not be in books. “Strengthen teamwork, trust in colleagues, commitment, leadership,… The inherent harshness of the sea and navigation will require a united and consolidated crew, capable of overcoming any adversity. “All of us who passed through Elcano learned a lot, but the most fundamental thing is that we forged ourselves in values,” shared its commander, Captain Luis Carreras-Presas do Campo.
