The Libertad frigate arrived this morning at the Mar del Plata Naval Base and was received with a ceremony led by the Minister of Defense, Jorge Taiana, after the end of the 49th instructional trip as a training ship for the Argentine Navy.
The boat entered the local port minutes before 10 o’clock and moored at the main dock of the naval property, where Taiana received the midshipmen who completed the journey and were reunited with their families.
Under the command of captain Osvaldo Raúl Chini, the frigate was anchored since last Friday off the coast of Mar del Plata, where it became one of the most outstanding postcards for thousands of tourists who arrived in the city for the long weekend .
The ship was received by the head of the Defense portfolio, together with the chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Juan Martín Paleo; the Chief of the Air Force, Xavier Julián Isaac; the chief of staff of the ministry, Héctor Mazzei; the Secretary General of the Navy, Diego Eduardo Suárez del Solar; the commander of the Atlantic Naval Area, Marcelo Luis Fernández, and the local mayor, Guillermo Montenegro.
The vessel had sailed on July 31 from the Buenos Aires Naval Station and for 90 days it sailed practically the entire Argentine coastline.
During the tour, he anchored near Claromecó (Buenos Aires), the spa “El Cóndor” and San Antonio Oeste (Río Negro), Comodoro Rivadavia (Chubut) and Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego).
The trip included the international ports of Valparaíso (Chile), El Callao (Peru), Punta Arenas (Chile) and Montevideo (Uruguay), a total of 10,847 nautical miles, according to the Navy.
On board 27 officers, 50 commissioned midshipmen and 180 non-commissioned officers participated in the voyage, as well as guests from Army and Air Force training institutes.
Taiana stressed that “today is a very important day and it is a pride to be able to receive this crew, who have completed the training of the midshipmen.”
“The frigate fulfilled its main mission, which is to train the sailors in charge of the defense of our country,” he said.
During its journey, the training ship also participated in the ceremonies for the 200 years of the Peruvian Navy and in the National Navy day of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, and in Ecuadorian waters it had a meeting with the School Ship of the Ecuadorian Navy BAE “Guayas”.
The objective of Instruction Trip 49 was to complete the professional training of the midshipmen in commission of Promotion 149, 84 of the Marine Infantry and 105 of the Professional Corps Escalafón Intendencia.
Navy sources reported that the ship will set sail again next Saturday, to Puerto Belgrano, and that between Tuesday and Friday it will be able to be visited from 3pm to 6pm, with mandatory use of a chinstrap.
The Libertad frigate is 104 meters long, 14.3 wide, has a surface area of 2,652 square meters of sail, 3,635 tons of displacement at full load and a maximum height at its main mast of 50 meters.
It is a three-masted frigate (fore, main and mizzen) and bowsprit, the sail is made up of 27 sails, and the figurehead, which represents the Republic and its deep-rooted feeling of freedom, is a work of art by the resident Spanish sculptor in Argentina Carlos García González.
