More than fifty women will be aboard the training ship "Gloria", the flagship of the Colombian National Navy, beginning a new era of the Colombian Naval Force

The feminine power will take the seas of the world from June of this year, when the first fifty-one women replace seventy-seven cadets in a historic relay.

According to an article in the portal of the Almirante Padilla Naval Academy of Cadets (Escuela Naval de Cadetes Almirante Padilla, in Spanish), the new members will be able to practice their knowledge received in the classrooms, such as electronic and astronomical coastal navigation, meteorology, maneuvers, breakdown control, auxiliary machinery, seamanship. These women will also be able to strengthen the skills and responsibilities that are assigned to them.

Leer en español: Colombia: las mujeres se toman el buque "Gloria"

They will also have the possibility of cultural exchange with other crews and demonstrate the naval tradition and military courtesy, essential for the training of the officers of the Colombian Navy.

According to the newspaper El Mercurio of Chile, one of the officers of the ship "Gloria" declared that the cadets and aspiring women to become officers of the Colombian Navy, after their time of service on board will become a regular part of the Navy and they may even continue to exercise the same military specialties as men. "The experience for us has been very positive, a spirit of competition has been created. The studies do not have any difference with those developed by men," said the commander.

The first port to visit will be Peru as the beginning of a tour, which will have as its motive the celebration of the fifty years of the National Navy.

According to the Naval page, captain Camilo Giraldo, commander of the ship "Gloria", said that the ship will sail with his new female crew from the district of Riohacha in Colombia to sixteen nations, in an itinerary called "Sails Latin America 2018" that will last seven months.

In this tour will join flagships of the naval schools of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Russia, Uruguay, Venezuela and Mexico, with a parade that will border the coasts of each port that visit in each country.

The twenty-one ports to visit are located in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Curacao, the Netherlands, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the United States, Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico and Jamaica.

According to the newspaper El Heraldo of the city of Barranquilla, Colombia, the training ship "Gloria" has traveled more than eight hundred and thirty thousand miles in eight thousand days, which is equal to twenty-five years navigated.

It has also served as a naval practice center for more than four thousand young cadets, who have visited one hundred and ninety ports in seventy-seven countries around the world.

The captain of ship Camilo Giraldo, commander of the ship "Gloria", said that "it is a pride to have these cadet women on board, who will be installed in the same spaces that men now occupy, with some specific protocols," he assured in the newspaper El Heraldo.

The first women who were part of the crew of the "Gloria" were five cadets who were part of the team of the training ship, in 1999.

Latin American Post | Luis Alfonso Fernández

Translated from "Colombia: las mujeres se toman el buque "Gloria""