The school ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano is a Bergantino-goleta owned by the Navy. It has four masts with the names of Blanca, Almansa, Asturias and Nautilus, names of four school ships that preceded it (Spanish Navy Photo)

On Saturday, March 5, 1927, at three in the afternoon, it was launched in Cadiz, the new school ship of the Spanish Navy, which was named Juan Sebastián Elcano in honor of the first navigator who completed the return to the world in 1522. As a cuirosity it was initially planned that the name "Minerva," which was limited to appear as the bow masked, would be displayed in his stern mirror. The Elcano is a bergantin goleta with four clubs named Blanca, Almansa, Asturias and Nautilus, the names of the school ship that preceded him in the Navy. The cost of the ship was just over eight million pesetas of the time, which were a fortune. Its helmet was designed by the company Echevarrieta and Larrinaga de Cadiz. The chief engineer of the project and creator of the Juan Antonio Aldecoa construction plans, who was the director of the Gaditan shipyard in those years. The candles were the work of the British legendary, Camper & Nicholson, who were projected in his Southampton factory... to be built in linen as was normal in those distant years by Ratwey & Lapthorne. The commander who had the honour of being the first of the Elcano was the captain of frigate Manuel de Mendívil, beginning the singladura on the first of August of the year 28 and ending on 29 May 1929, between Cadiz and Cadiz, to make a stop in the ports of Cape Verde, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Suva, San Francisco, Balboa, Havana and New York. In these days when his 90 birthday is celebrated, the veteran Bergantino-goleta of the Spanish Navy, is located on the Gaditano Arsenal de la Carraca, preparing what will be his next instruction cruise.