Today, Monday, October 18 at 12:30 p.m., the Transatlantic Dock hosted the official reception ceremony for the “Pelican of London” after its arrival in Vigo this past weekend. The training ship captained by Ben Wheatley is one of the boats confirmed to participate next year 2022 in the Iacobus Maris, the longest Xacobea Maritime route in history that will depart from Genoa and arrive in Vigo after previously passing through Valencia, Seville and Porto .
The event was attended by Marta Fernández-Tapias, territorial delegate of the Xunta de Galicia in Vigo; Beatriz Colunga, director of the Port of Vigo; the Naval Commander of Vigo, Carlos Cárdenas; Pedro Mouriño, Honorary Consul of Russia in Galicia; Antón Fonseca, vice president of Terras Gauda; Javier Touza, president of the Port of Vigo Fishing Ship Owners Cooperative; Julio Silveira, CEO of Remolcanosa; Ben Wheatley, Captain of the “Pelican of London”; Celso González, director of the Traslatio Foundation; Mario Cardama, president of the Traslatio Foundation; and Javier Castro, director of Incargo in Galicia and trustee of the Foundation.
Mario Cardama was in charge of welcoming the authorities present and the crew of the school ship which, as he explained, “symbolizes the spirit with which the Iacobus Maris Route was born to commemorate the Xacobeo. The scale of the Pelican of London, after a year of absence due to the pandemic, marks the path that the Iacobus Maris route is preparing for the summer of 2022 and that, in addition to the port of Vigo, it promotes in the cities of Genoa in Italy, Valencia, Seville and Porto in Portugal”.
Cardama took advantage of his speech to announce that “the ocean school competition boats of the past World Tours have shown great interest in participating, such as the one that departed from Vigo in November 2005. Likewise, thanks to the collaboration with the universities, a ship that throughout the duration of the route will have university students on board immersed in a teaching program of subjects related to history, culture, technology, social relations”.
For her part, Marta Fernández-Tapias began by welcoming the entire crew of the “Pelican of London” to Vigo and stated that “it is certainly an appetizer of what the Iacobus Maris is going to entail and that it will bring Vigo back to the tall ships. From the Xunta de Galicia we work with the Traslatio Foundation with the aim of placing Vigo at the epicenter of the Xacobeo 21-22 with this journey that will depart from Genoa and will remember what the original journey of more than 3,000 miles from Jaiffa was”.
Once the reception was over, the attending authorities boarded the “Pelican of London” to greet the crew and learn about the work carried out by the students during the months of training.
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