Spanish Training Ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano
by Luis Crespo

1/700 Juan Sebastián de Elcano (Heller Kitbash)

The real thing:

The Juan Sebastián de Elcano is a training ship for the Spanish Armada. She is a four-masted topsail, steel-hulled schooner. She is the third-largest Tall Ship in the world.

She is named after Spanish explorer Juan Sebastián de Elcano, captain of Fernando de Magallanes' last exploratory fleet. The ship also carries the de 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 terraqueous globe with the motto "Primus Circumdedisti Me" (meaning: "First to circumnavigate me").

The Juan Sebastián de Elcano was built in 1927 in Cadiz, Spain, and her hull was designed by the Echevarrieta y Larriñaga shipyard. Her plans were also used twenty five years later to construct her Chilean sail training vessel sister ship Esmeralda in 1952-1954.

At 83 years old, she´s one of the oldest naval training vessels in comission, and she´s a very active one.

Her statistics were:

• Displacement: 3,754 tons full load
• Dimensions: 94 x 13.6 x 7 meters (308 x 44.5 x 23 feet)
• Propulsion: Sail; 1 diesel, 1 shaft, 1500 bhp, 10 knots
• Crew: 225 + 80 officer students
• Armament: 2 x 47 mm salute guns.

The model:

There is no 1/700 commercial model of "Príncipe de Asturias", but some time ago I found and obscure 1/750 Heller kit of the four masted barque "Pamir" Doing some math, I found that the dimensions of a 750th "Pamir" fitted almost exactly those of a 700th "Juan Sebastián de Elcano" so I started what was going to be a full reconstruction. At the end I only used a heavily modified hull and the masts from the original kit, and scratchbuilt the rest. I have represented her while leaving Cádiz for her yearly training cruise.