The Chilean training ship Esmeralda has returned to Cádiz, its mother port. 70 years ago, on June 15, 1954, she set sail from here on her maiden voyage that would take her to Valparaíso, Chile, the base of that country’s fleet. This ship, … that has trained dozens of generations of officers and Chilean sailors, is a replica of the Spanish training ship Juan Sebastián Elcano and is deeply linked to Cádiz, where it was manufactured.
The same Echevarrieta and Larrinaga shipyards in Cádiz, owned by Horacio Echevarrieta, that had launched the Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1927, a ship on which officers were trained, were commissioned in 1946 to build a similar brig-schooner to train people from sea. They followed the plans of the engineer Juan Antonio Aldecoa y Arias that he had found a hull praised for its beauty and hydrodynamics. The ship would be called Juan de Austria
Construction had already begun when in August 1947 the devastating explosion of the magazine at the Submarine Defense Base occurred, destroying the surrounding neighborhoods, killing 150 people and injuring thousands. In that tragedy, Captain Pascual Pery Junquera would become a hero by putting out the fire in another attached powder magazine. Affected by the explosion, the embryonic helmet was left lying on the dock and its manufacture was aborted.
Spain’s debts
Post-war Spain had no money and many debts. It so happened that Juan Dantón Sánchez Pérez, a Spanish sailor who knew the Chilean Navy well, was the honorary consul of Chile in Cádiz. Sánchez had convalesced in several Chilean hospitals after suffering a serious accident aboard a Spanish ship that disembarked him in that South American country. As he knew that Chile had lost its training ship (the Lautaro) In an accident off the Peruvian coast in 1945, he set himself the task of resurrecting the Juan de Austria for the Chileans.
The Chilean Navy showed interest and as Spain had debts with that country contracted during the Civil War, the ship was completed in 1954 as part payment under the name Esmeralda. Given that there are 27 years between the launch of her older brother, there are some superficial differences between the two ships.
The White Lady, as it is known in Chile, is a national symbol
The ‘White Lady’, which is the nickname by which Chileans know the Esmeralda, is the sixth ship of that name in service in their Navy and has been part of its brightest moments and also its dark ones, such as torture. that occurred in its bilge after the coup d’état of 1973. It is a national symbol and provokes a special emotion in Chileans, since honors the corvette of Captain Arturo Prat, the greatest Chilean naval hero. A bust of Prat was delivered yesterday by the ship’s authorities and the Chilean ambassador in Madrid, Javier Velasco, to the mayor of Cádiz, Bruno García.
The stories of the ships and the people who drive them end up intertwining in a dizzying way. The Chilean crew occupied the Esmeralda on June 14 and set sail on the 15th. That night a reception was offered on the ship, open to Cádiz society. Among the guests was Purita Suffo, a young woman who had been chosen for her beauty as the city’s flower queen. That night she met the young Enrique Zanelli, one of the Chilean midshipmen who had come to take the ship to her country. they fell in love and they married three years later in the church of Carmen in Cádiz.
The wedding of Purita Suffo and Enrique Zanelli, parents of Víctor Zanelli, who reached the rank of admiral in the Chilean Navy
Enrique Zanelli did not pursue a career as a sailor. He finished his studies and entered the oil industry. But yesHis son Víctor did pursue a naval career in Chile and would reach the rank of admiral of the Navy Chilean. His connection to Spain through his mother has made Zanelli a well-known man in Spanish nautical circles. As commander of the Chilean Navy’s Aquiles transport, he was in charge of taking King Juan Carlos I to the Strait of Magellan during the monarch’s visit to Antarctica in 2004.
In 2008, Zanelli had to command the Esmeralda and arrive with his ship in Cádiz as part of the annual training cruise. As a tribute to the city of his and Esmeralda’s mother, the captain taught the seafaring salve to his crew and had them sing it at the doors of the Carmen church. Last night, in Cádiz, Zanelli was at the same social reception where his parents met 70 years ago, on the same ship.
