Suez Canal : The historic Spanish vessel, JUAN SEBASTIAN DE ELCANO, crossed the Suez Canal

Juan Sebastián de Elcano is a training ship of the Spanish Navy. It is a four-masted topsail, steel-hulled barquentine (schooner barque). At 113 metres (371 ft) long, it is the third-largest tall ship in the world, and is the sailing vessel that has sailed the furthest, covering more than 2,000,000 nautical miles (3,700,000 km; 2,300,000 mi) in its lifetime.

It is named after Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián Elcano, captain of Ferdinand Magellan’s last exploratory fleet and the man who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. The ship carries the Elcano coat of arms, which was granted to the family by Emperor Charles I following Elcano’s return in 1522 from Magellan’s global expedition. The coat of arms is a globe with the motto “Primus Circumdedisti Me” (meaning: “First to circumnavigate me”).

‘Juan Sebastián de Elcano’ was built in 1927 in Cadiz, Spain, and its hull was designed by the naval architect Mr C E Nicholson of Camper and Nicholsons Ltd of Southampton. Constructed by Echevarrieta y Larrinaga shipyard^[4] in Cadiz. After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931 the ship became part of the Spanish Republican Navy.

In 1933 under Commander Salvador Moreno Fernández‘s order, a series of improvements were made to the ship and the bronze plate with the Latin language inscription Tu Primus Circumdedisti Me was placed near the prow. At the time of the coup of July 1936 Juan Sebastián Elcano was in Ferrol, a harbor that had been taken by the Nationalist faction. Its plans were used twenty-five years later to construct its Chilean sail training vessel sister ship Esmeralda in 1952–1954