Association will recreate first trip around the world

THE Friends of the Great Navigators and Spanish Explorers Association (Agnyee) will recreate in the spring of 2021 the feat of the two sailors Magellan and Elcano of being the first to travel all the way around the world.

The first circumnavigation was completed by Juan Sebastian Elcano in 1522, when he arrived back at his point of departure in Sevilla.

In Spring 2021, the association plans to resume the expedition which will recreated his trip.

The President of the Association Pepe Sola, told the press that he plans to fly from Madrid to Peru in January to begin the work that will make the Pros sailboat, which is 21 metres long, shipshape.

The voyage had to stop in Lima, Peru in March due to the coronavirus pandemic and has been harboured at Peru Naval Academy since then.

They are “firmly determined to complete the expedition that we started in August 2019”, he said. Before that, they need to clean and restore the ship, which is not in top shape after nine months of inactivity.

The unpredicted stop means that they will now have to miss out some important milestones planned for the trip, but it should conclude with the return to Sevilla in September 2022.

One such visit would have been Guam, on March 6, where Magellan and Elcano arrived after a 139-day journey across the Pacific for the first time.

Nor will they visit Mactan on April 26, the Philippine town where the captain general, Fernando Magallanes (known as Magellan in English) died. Juan Sebastian Elcano continued and completed the trip without him.

When the ship stopped in Peru, they had completed more than 11,000 miles, a quarter of the way.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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