''Guayas'' is a

sail training From its modern interpretations to its antecedents when maritime nations would send young naval officer candidates to sea (e.g., see Outward Bound), sail training provides an unconventional and effective way of building many useful skills on a ...

ship of the

Ecuadorian Navy The Ecuadorian Navy () is an Ecuadorian entity responsible for the surveillance and protection of national maritime territory and has a personnel of 9,400 men to protect a coastline of 2,237 km which reaches far into the Pacific Ocean. The v ...

. Launched in 1976, it was named in jointly in honor of Chief Guayas, the Guayas river, and ''Guayas'', the first steamship that was constructed in South America in 1841, and is displayed on the Ecuadorian coat of arms. The ship's home base is

Guayaquil Guayaquil (), officially Santiago de Guayaquil, is the largest city in Ecuador and also the nation's economic capital and main port. The city is the capital (political), capital of Guayas Province and the seat of Guayaquil Canton. The city is ...

Ecuador Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador, is a country in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west. It also includes the Galápagos Province which contain ...

Description

''Guayas'' is a three-masted

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel with three or more mast (sailing), masts of which the fore mast, mainmast, and any additional masts are Square rig, rigged square, and only the aftmost mast (mizzen in three-maste ...

with a steel hull that can display a sailing area of .Chapman Great Sailing Ships of the World
/ref> The main mast reaches over deck. The ship carries a crew of about 120 sailors as well as eighty cadets under the leadership of about 35 officers. ''Guayas'' is one of four sailing ships that were built by Astilleros Celaya S.A. in

Bilbao Bilbao is a city in northern Spain, the largest city in the Provinces of Spain, province of Biscay and in the Basque Country (greater region), Basque Country as a whole. It is also the largest city proper in northern Spain. Bilbao is the List o ...

, '' Gloria'' (Colombia) being the most similar ship; the other two

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...

s are ''

Simón Bolívar Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios (24July 178317December 1830) was a Venezuelan statesman and military officer who led what are currently the countries of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, and Bol ...

'' (Venezuela), and ''

Cuauhtémoc Cuauhtémoc (, ), also known as Cuauhtemotzín, Guatimozín, or Guatémoc, was the Aztec ruler ('' tlatoani'') of Tenochtitlan from 1520 to 1521, and the last Aztec Emperor. The name Cuauhtemōc means "one who has descended like an eagle", an ...

'' (Mexico). These four ships basic design is very similar to Blohm & Voss' '' Gorch Fock'' that was built more than four decades earlier. It is classified as a Class A Tall Ship by Sail Training International (STI) and has the

MMSI A Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) is effectively a maritime object's international ''maritime telephone number'', a temporarily assigned UID issued by that object's current flag state (unlike an IMO number, which is a permanent global UID ...

number 735059037.

History

In 2002 the ''Guayas'' undertook a voyage along the west coast of North America with port of calls at Acapulco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Monterey, San Francisco, and Seattle. In 2008, the ''Guayas'' crossed the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

to visit

Vladivostok Vladivostok ( ; , ) is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Zolotoy Rog, Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area o ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

, and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. On the Osaka-Pusan-Shanghai leg of this her first Asian trip the ''Guayas'' took aboard an officer of the Chinese navy for

reefing Reefing reduces the area of a sail, usually by folding or rolling one edge of the canvas in on itself and attaching the unused portion to a Spar (sailing), spar or a , as the primary measure to preserve a sailing vessel's stability in strong wi ...

training. By the end of 2008 the ''Guayas'' had visited 60 harbours in 25 countries and covered about in its life. In 2010, she participated in Velas Sudamerica 2010, an historical

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

n tour by eleven tall ships to celebrate the bicentennial of the first national governments of Argentina and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

''Guayas'' has also participated in OpSail 2012, visiting New York, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Boston, before proceeding to Europe. In the same year, it participated in the Tall Ships Race 2012. BAE Guayas in Sydney 2016-01-10

On 8 January 2016, ''Guayas'' arrived in Sydney as part of a round-the-world training cruise, the longest (35,000 nautical miles) such cruise performed so far by this ship, during which 22 countries will be visited. This is the first visit to Australia since 1988. In October 2021, ''Guayas'' interdicted and captured a

narco-submarine A narco-submarine (also called a drug sub or narco-sub) is a type of custom Seakeeping, ocean-going, Marine propulsion, self-propelled, semi-submersible or fully-submersible vessel built by (or for) drug smugglers. Newer semi-submersibles are ...

off the coast of Colombia. ''Guayas'' crew arrested the submarine's four-person crew and seized its cargo, which was estimated by USNI News as being of

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

References

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Official site

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guayas (BE-21) Barques Tall ships of Ecuador Training ships Ships built in Spain 1976 ships Auxiliary ships of the Ecuadorian Navy Sail training ships