This Saturday, Princess Leonor, heir to the Spanish throne, will board the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano, a crucial stage of her training at the Naval Academy. The Princess of Asturias will live for five months aboard this sailboat which will stop at several ports in Spain and America. What will life be like on board? What will be the exact route of the ship and what will be the highlights of this experience?
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Princess Leonor will participate in the 97th training cruise of the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano
On January 11, 2025, the training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano will begin its 97th training cruise. This four-masted, twenty-sail ship serves as a floating training ground for students of the Naval Academy. This year, Princess Leonor, 19, will be on the trip. The heir to the Spanish throne completed a year of training at the General Military Academy last year and is now completing a year of training at the Naval Academy. Like her father, King Felipe VI in 1987, and like her grandfather, King Juan Carlos in 1958, the Princess of Asturias will complete her training cruise aboard the training ship.
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Princess Leonor will leave Cádiz this Saturday, with some 80 other comrades. The ship, commanded by Captain Luis Carreras-Presas, will make a loop and conclude its journey on July 16, 2025 in Marin. Princess Leonor will not be entitled to any preferential treatment and will perform the same tasks as her comrades. There is no question of making a single room available to him either. Like all the other students, she will sleep in a cabin that she will share with three other young women. Each cabin is equipped with pairs of two bunk beds and a bathroom. Leonor and her cabin mates will be the only three young female students on board during the cruise.
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A five-month trip that will end in June in New York for the Princess of Asturias
This training serves to learn the life of a sailor but the more academic military training continues on board. Thus, 18 subjects of study are given in classrooms. Navigation will obviously be on the program of this learning which includes subjects such as astronomy and meteorology. From a military point of view, strategy and combat at sea will be on the program, as well as specific command of marine or amphibious regiments.
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Princess Leonor will embark as a marine guard, a rank reserved for naval officer cadets in Spain. Students will take turns to provide four-hour shifts, which can arrive at any time of the day, including at night. On board, students will learn rudimentary tasks that will test their discipline. The students must clean their living spaces as well as the bridge themselves. They will also learn protocol requirements, particularly when there are visits aboard the ship.
Fourteen stops are planned in major ports, mainly in America. At each stopover, the ship remains in port for several days. The first stop will be in the Canaries, an archipelago off the coast of Africa which belongs to Spain. From January 17 to 20, the ship will be docked in Tenerife, then from January 21 to 23 it will be in the port of Las Palmas, on the neighboring island. From January 23 to February 14, the daughter of King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia will experience her first major crossing, since it will take approximately three weeks to reach the port of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. After Brazil, head for Uruguay, before reaching Punta de Arenas, in the south of Chile, which will be the southernmost stop of the cruise. Subsequently, the ship will sail along the west coast of South America, with stops in Valparaiso then in Peru, before crossing the famous Panama Canal.
Colombia then the Dominican Republic will be the last two stops before arriving in New York on June 5. The 113 meter sailboat will remain in New York until June 10 before starting the Atlantic crossing towards Spain. For Princess Leonor, the adventure on board will end in New York. Princess Leonor studies one year in the Land component (2023-2024), one year in the Navy (2024-2025) and one year in the Air component (2025-2026), where each training normally lasts three years. For this reason, the princess is entitled to a condensed program. During the month of June, she will deepen her knowledge aboard a frigate in Spain.
Due to her arranged study schedule, it was agreed that she would return to Spain by plane. It will take the ship five weeks to complete the route from New York to Gijón, in northern Spain. Princess Leonor will be able to use this time to deepen her study. On July 16, the Princess of Asturias will board the ship to symbolically end the journey as a closing ceremony is planned in the presence of the sovereigns.
Nicolas Fontaine
Editor-in-chief
Nicolas Fontaine has been a designer-editor and author for numerous Belgian and French brands and media. A specialist in royal family news, Nicolas founded the site Histoires royales of which he is the editor-in-chief. [email protected]
