Tag Archives: tall ship

Velas Latinoamerica 2022!

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Starting back in 2010, the Velas Latinoamerica (Sails Latin America) event is a tall ship race and regatta organized by the navies of Latin America who operate sail-powered frigates, brigantines, and schooners as school ships. This has included Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela in the past, with the occasional participation of out-of-area tall ships such as the USCGC Eagle and Portugal’s NRP Sagres.

Held every four years, this year’s event is hosted by Brazil, a country celebrating its bicentennial, and has tall ships from five countries attending.

The vessels

Attending this year is a regular participant, the sail frigate ARA Libertad (Q-2) of the Argentine Navy.

Built in the 1950s, she Libertad carries an old 47mm Hotchkiss battery for saluting purposes and can carry 150 embarked cadets.

Also from Argentina is the Coast Guard research schooner, Dr. Bernardo Houssay.

Built in Denmark in 1929, the 142-foot vessel has ties to Jacques Cousteau and only joined the Argentine fleet for oceanographic research tasks in 2008 after a three-year rebuild.

Brazil’s NVe Cisne Branco, a 249-foot three-masted clipper built by Damen in 1999.

Her name means White Swan in English.

From Ecuador is the school ship BAE Guayas (BE-21), which we have talked about before.

Built in Spain in the 1970s, the 257-foot barque has sisterships in the navies of Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela.

The Peruvian Navy’s BAP Unión (BEV-161), a huge 378-foot four-masted barque built in Spain, is almost brand new when it comes to tall ships, being commissioned in 2016.

She is the largest sail vessel in Latin America and is thoroughly modern, with a Caterpillar/Rolls Royce engineering suite under the hood.

The Uruguayan Navy has sent their school ship, Capitan Miranda.

The 205-foot schooner has a crew of 51. Built in 1930 in Spain, she has completed dozens of worldwide cruises in her career.

Starting in Rio this week, the ships will continue through the Straits of Magellan, proceed up the Pacific Coast of South America, cross through the Panama Canal into the Caribbean, and end at Vera Cruz at the end of June, making 12 official port calls.

 

The Brazilian Navy has a great Flickr album of the vessels, here.

The Busted Chopin

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Here we see the demasted 400-ton, 181-foot Polish brig-rigged schoolship, STS Fryderyk Chopin, as she is towed to Falmouth by the F/V Nova Spiro, a local fishing vessel, Halloween of 2010.

Photo: RNLI Falmouth

Built in 1992 and owned at the time by the European School of Law and Administration, a private university based in Poland, Chopin was on a 100-day cruise from Holland to the Caribbean with 47 souls aboard (including three dozen 14-year-old cadets) when she was struck by a wind of nine gales while about 100 miles southwest of the Isles of Scilly. Although her diesel was online, the ship’s master was unwilling to use it for fear of trailing debris fouling the screw.

The 66-foot trawler Nova Spero answered her Pan/Mayday call and towed her 100 miles to Falmouth Bay over a three-day period.

The teens were brought ashore and spent the next few nights in a hostel before being sent back home. There were no casualties.

Today, the repaired Chopin is owned by 3OCEANS Sp. z o.o. and serves as the ship of The Blue School, a Polish sail training project. She is currently around Spitsbergen on a summer cruise according to her social media page.