Around The World Aboard The Nautilus
Villaamil was a strong advocate of oceanic sailing as the best training for the young Navy officers and in 1892, being appointed commander of the corvette Nautilus he took advantage of the celebrations of the fourth centenary of America's discovery to get approval for an instruction cruise around the world, rounding the three Great Capes.
On November 30, 1892 the Nautilus left Ferrol, in the northwest end of Spain. She rounded Cape Agulhas and Cape Leeuwin, passed through Bass and Cook straits, rounded Cape Horn, went to New York and eventually, after sailing forty thousand miles, came back to Spain on a shining Sunday, July 16, 1894, in San Sebastián.
Here the sailors suddenly realized that an approaching launch hoisted the royal pennant. It was the Regent Queen and her son, the child King Alfonso XIII, coming to welcome Villaamil and all the Nautilus crew.
| “ | The world cruise increased Villamil's popularity even more. He published the story of the voyage in an excellent book in which he not only reported on the events of the cruise, but also on his thoughts on many things he found around the world. His comments on the comparison between British and Spanish colonies are impressively meaningful and well-written. One cannot avoid a thrill when reading Villaamil's reflections after visiting, in May 1894, the Cramp shipyards in Philadelphia, where two battleships and three cruisers were in different stages of construction. He wrote: "While I'm not in a position to decipher the aims that this nation has set itself, I notice that in the last years, in an unexpected way, it devotes its attention and money to acquiring warships that represent the latest advances in naval engineering". Indeed, he didn't know that four years later his destiny would make a fatal appointment with those impressive warships, annihilating him, many of his sea-fellows, all their ships and the last remains of the Spanish Empire. | ” |
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Famous quotes containing the words world and/or aboard:
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