Last Tuesday night, the Italian tall ship Amerigo Vespucci sailed into Palma de Mallorca, on its way from Cadiz to Italy. The vessel is a school ship of the Italian Marina Militare. The tall ship will be here until tomorrow, September 26th. Today, Saturday, public viewings will be allowed between 14h00 and 17h30 at the Muelle de Ribera de San Carlos in Dique del Oeste at the far end of Palma’s puerto. I would urge you to go; you will probably not see many boats of a greater beauty, here or anywhere, anytime soon.

May I have you know that I had problems yesterday finding the Amerigo Vespucci in Palma. The vessel was not anchored where I had expected it to be, opposite the Auditorium. I asked a number of people and was given different answers and conflicting directions. Eventually, I had to walk a long way, all the way to the Dique del Oeste where I found out that I was too late and was not allowed into the harbour area at all. To cut a long story short, I did not manage to see the vessel from a close range or even board it; far from it. I will have to make another attempt later today and see what happens. It is for this shortcoming that I can only offer you the photo (top) of the Amerigo Vespucci’s rig of my own hand; the photos (centre) and (bottom) had to be borrowed and begged from the Internet. I am sorry; I do apologise.

The Amerigo Vespucci was built in 1930 at the (formerly Royal) Naval Shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia (Naples, Italy); she was launched in February, 1931, and was put into service in July of that year. The ship has a crew of some 450 men, including 350 cadets. The vessel has been in Palma on fourteen occasions so far, including the present visit. The first call was in 1939.

According to Wikipedia, the Amerigo Vespucci has been continually active except for the time during the second World War. Most of her training cruises are in European waters, but she has also sailed to North and South America, and navigated the Pacific Ocean. In 2002, she undertook a voyage around the world.

The photo (top) was taken in Palma de Mallorca, Baleares, Spain. The date: September 24th, 2010. The time was 19:04:46. The photo (centre) was borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of diariodemallorca.es and the photographer, Manuel R. Aguilera. The photo (bottom) was also borrowed from the Internet, courtesy of barcabalear.blogspot.com.

Muchas gracias and moltes gràcies.