Romanian Navy opens fundraising to send training ship sailing around the world

The Romanian Navy has launched a fundraising campaign to send the training-ship Mircea in a sail around the world between March 2021 and January 2022.

The project of the ship sailing around the world, making stops in ports on all continents, is meant to “showcase the Romanian spirit and cultural values.”

Mircea is a three masted barque, built in 1938 in Hamburg by the Blohm & Voss shipyard. It has been in the service of the Navy for 80 years. During this time, it stopped in over 120 ports in Europe, Anatolia, north of Africa, and North America.

The fundraising campaign is held by the Navy and the Gheorghe Balaban Foundation.

In 1938, part of the funds needed to build the ship were raised in a similar campaign.

The ship is currently in its yearly training sail. It is to cross, over a period of three months, the Black Sea, the Marmara Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, and the North Sea. It will stop in the ports of Syracuse (Italia), Barcelona (Spain), Almeria (Spain), Cadiz (Spain), Brest (France), Rouen (France), The Hague (Netherlands), Hamburg (Germany), Southampton (UK), Lisbon (Portugal), Valletta (Malta) and Istanbul (Turkey).

It will return to Romania on August 7.

(Photo: Spiridon Manoliu/ Wikipedia)