Nao Victoria circumnavigates again.

[Guillermo]

A replica of the 'Nao Victoria' has just finished a 570 days circumnavigation, to commemorate Juan Sebastian de Elcano's first round the world epic voyage.
In that trip, the strait of Magellan was discovered, and afterwards named after Magalhães, the portuguese captain commanding the Spanish fleet in that moment! (Paulo, what happened? ). Later Elcano took command (Magalhães died in the Phillippines) and finished the trip, so being the first captain in the world to achieve this.
Measured 27 meters in length, 3.5 meters in width and 22 meters in height, the replica of the "Nao Victoria" can accommodate a crew of 18 as well as 50 passengers.
Find more at:
http://www.expoaichi2005.com/en/html...a/0215_Nao.jsp

[SeaSpark]

We build a great replica here, the Batavia, http://www.bataviawerf.nl/en/index.html

It was meant to sail and do a remake of her voyage to Australia (without the stranding i suppose). None of this happened cuz no insurance could be found...

This week they had some publicity, the ship is was freed from its cables and turned 180deg only to be chained again. This so the weather can do its job from both sides......

(edit: This is asking for some free Willy kind of initiative.)
(edit: The ship visited Sydney for the 2000 olympics but it was transported there as cargo)

[Wellydeckhand]

BATAVIA is an old name forbthe present Capital of Indonesia - Jakarta

[SeaSpark]

Batavia was a trading vessel build to transport goods from Indonesia to Holland, stranding in Australia was an error in navigation.

Funny thing is some of the insurance companies have their origins in the VOC (the trading company that build the original Batavia).

[Wellydeckhand]

East Indies Company

[Vega]

Originally Posted by SeaSpark

We build a great replica here, the Batavia, http://www.bataviawerf.nl/en/index.html

It was meant to sail and do a remake of her voyage to Australia (without the stranding i suppose). None of this happened cuz no insurance could be found...

I like the Dutch, but with you guys, it is always the money first...little poetry in your style,…. I mean with the V.O.C. pulling the strings, it was all too serious and the profit assessment too rational. I guess you still are that way

[Vega]

Originally Posted by Guillermo

In that trip, the strait of Magellan was discovered, and afterwards named after Magalhães, the portuguese captain commanding the Spanish fleet in that moment! (Paulo, what happened? ). Later Elcano took command (Magalhães died in the Phillippines) and finished the trip, so being the first captain in the world to achieve this.
http://www.expoaichi2005.com/en/html...a/0215_Nao.jsp

Evidently because you guys had nobody capable of doing that, so you had to get a Portuguese Captain to do the job.

The Portuguese were not interested in the west passage to the east, because it was a longer one, than the one around Africa and India.

Anyway the first man to have effectively sailed around the world was Magalhães (not in the same voyage). He had already sailed earlier to the Molucas (Philipines), the place where he was killed by natives
When he died the job was done. They were already in known waters.

[safewalrus]

Damn I missed that!

Would have been good to have a English pirate on the crew to move your lubberly dogs on! But seriously it's good to see that another piece of the jigsaw of our heritage (the worlds not any individual nation!) has been made so that the old ways are not lost, most important that we never forget the privatations that the old explorers went through to improve everybodies lives, and whilst extremely jealous of the people involved I salute their efforts in the chase!!!

Mike (the Walrus) - well done to all concerned

[Vega]

Originally Posted by safewalrus

Damn I missed that!

Would have been good to have a English pirate on the crew to move your lubberly dogs on!
Mike (the Walrus) - well done to all concerned

But there was an Englishman, probably a pirate, as almost all English sailors on those days

Seriously, that expedition attracted adventurers from all parts and since Castilians were not exactly god sailors, they recruited all good sailors they could get, never minding their nationality.
The crew of those boats was like that:

1 Englishman, some (Germans, Bretons, Greeks, Dutch, Irish, Moorish), 19 French, 26 Sicilians and Genovese, 25 Portuguese, and a little bit more than 50% of the 235 man were Spanish, but mostly Basques and Galician.

As you can see it was a wild bunch of all colors and styles.

Sebastian del Cano was a Basque and not one of the Castilians Hidalgos that had the initial command of some of the boats. He was a true sailor and was elected Captain by the men when Magalhães was killed.

Those Castilian Hidalgos never accepted Magalhães’s leadership, and things only started to go smoothly when, after a mutiny, he hanged some and “landed” the leader of the mutiny (a Castilian Captain), in the wilderness of South America.

If you don’t know this already is because you missed a hell of a book. I will post that one on the appropriate thread, the one about tales.

[Guillermo]

Originally Posted by Vega

Seriously, that expedition attracted adventurers from all parts and since Castilians were not exactly god sailors, they recruited all good sailors they could get, never minding their nationality.

I think the reason was not the better or worse quality of Castilian sailors, but the lack of crews because the high number of vessels in merchant fleets those days and the people involved in the conquering of America. There was simply not enough skilled manwork available (The same thing happened not only in Spain, but in other nations too).

In Spain the quality of Portuguese seamen, specially their captains, was greatly appreciated those days. I've read a most interesting book, the "Arte para Fabricar, Fortificar y Aparejar Naos de Gverra y Merchante" written in 1611 by Thomè Cano, an Spanish merchant vessels' captain. The book is about the building of seagoing vessels.

There Thomè talks wonders of the Portuguese captains and boatwrights, and does an special mention to Magalhães and Sebastián de Elcano.

He writes: "...y eftan muy diestros los marineros Españoles, Portuguefes y Andaluzes con particular primor y excelencia fobre todas las naciones del mu(n)do: La de los Frãceses, Inglefes y Olandefes, puede(n) hablar en efta materia mejor q(ue) ellos, y au(n) eftos fon marineros de ayer acà; y lo que faben lo deven a los Portuguefes, que los an inftruydo...."

To those of you not understanding old spanish: "...and the Spanish, Portuguese and Andalucian sailors are very skilled, standing out over the world's nations: They know about this matters (navigating) more than French, English and Dutch do; this last are novice sailors and what they know they ow it to the Portuguese, who had taught them..." (I'm sorry, French, English and Dutch friends...)

P.S: Magallães was nationalized Spanish.

[safewalrus]

Just goes to prove what I said before - there are two kinds of people in the world, those that go to sea and those that don't!

Those that don't bicker, fight, call each other names, have wars, steal, kill and are generally obnoxious

those that do (real seamen/seawomen) don't!

hail to them (and that's coming from an old salt - mind you when you read some of my posts you might think otherwise - didn't say anything about whinge did I? Sailors right to whinge - as long as he gets the job done!)