First Ocean Voyage of the Training Ship Unión
View of the Training Ship. (Photo: SENER)
View of the Training Ship. (Photo: SENER)
On its first ocean voyage to Europe, the training ship ‘Unión’ – a large sailed vessel belonging to the Peruvian Navy – called on the port of Cádiz, as part of its second training mission and its first mission with a stop in Europe.
On the request of the shipbuilder SIMA and the Peruvian Navy, the engineering and technology group SENER has developed the ship’s complete stability booklet, which required conducting advanced studies of its weights and ballast under various loads.
Built in SIMA Perú’s shipyards in Callao, the BAP Unión is a four-masted sailboat with barque-style rigging and over 3,500 m2 of sails. She measures 115.75 m long with a 13.5 m beam and a displacement of 3,380 tons. Her 1825 kw of power can yield a speed of 12 knots, with capacity for a crew of 250.
The project’s scope includes all of the calculations for the vessel’s naval architecture and stability, which the SENER team performed by traveling to the SIMA shipyards and making use of the FORAN System’s specific naval architecture calculation modules, developed by SENER itself.
The studies of the ship’s weights and the redistribution of her fixed ballast in the original design were crucial for sailing the Unión safely, defining the various load situations that might occur while sailing.
These studies, performed using FORAN, included all the statutory calculations and documents that are required for the stability booklet and make it possible for the ship to travel safely on the high seas.
With over 60 years of history in marine engineering, SENER has extensive experience in designing all types of vessel, particularly sail training ships, having used FORAN for the full design of the sail training ships of the navies of Mexico (Cuahutemoc), Ecuador (Guayas), Colombia (Gloria) and Venezuela (Simón Bolivar), which continue to ride the waves up to the present day. FORAN is a naval design and production system developed by SENER that is currently used by over 150 shipyards and engineering firms.
