Mexico’s training ship Cuauhtémoc sets sail for US ports 14 months after its Brooklyn Bridge accident

The Mexican Navy’s grooming vessel Cuauhtémoc acceptable sail from Acapulco connected Wednesday, returning to the seas for the archetypal clip since past year’s tragic mishap successful Brooklyn, New York, that claimed the lives of 2 young cadets.

The Cuauhtémoc Sailing Training Ship began a three-month “North Pacific” cruise, bound for assorted ports successful the United States and Canada.

As Navy Minister Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales reminded the cadets connected committee the Cuauhtémoc, the caller voyage volition “finish forging your mettle, audacity and enactment arsenic officers.”
(Secretaría de Marina)

Among the ports the Cuauhtémoc — a Class A sail grooming vessel, besides known arsenic a “tall ship” — volition sojourn during its three-month voyage are: Honolulu, Hawaii; Seward, Alaska; Victoria, Canada; San Francisco and San Diego, California. 

The emblematic vessel acceptable sail with 281 passengers — 144 naval cadets (45 women and 99 men) and a unit of 137 (106 men and 31 women) — and is scheduled to instrumentality to the larboard of Acapulco connected Oct. 15. 

The voyage, during which the cadets volition enactment into signifier the cognition acquired successful the schoolroom and fortify their navigation skills, represents the last signifier of nonrecreational grooming for the cadets earlier they postgraduate arsenic Navy officers.

This is the archetypal planetary voyage for the Cuauhtémoc since the tragic events of May 17, 2025, that resulted successful the decease of 2 Navy cadets and injuries to 20 others aboard the vas erstwhile it crashed into the Brooklyn Bridge.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board has not yet issued a last report, but its preliminary findings identified 3 issues: a bent rudder; a imaginable nonaccomplishment of the adaptable transportation propeller (part of the ship’s propulsion system); and the information that section harbor pilots helping maneuver the vessel gave commands successful English that were translated into Spanish for the ship’s crew. 

During Wednesday’s Bon Voyage ceremony, Navy Minister Admiral Raymundo Pedro Morales addressed the assemblage from the platform of the 44-year-old three-masted barque.

“This is not a elemental trip,” helium reminded the crew. “It is the crucible that volition decorativeness forging your mettle, audacity and enactment arsenic officers who volition bid [the Mexican Navy].”

The Cuauhtémoc — built successful Bilbao, Spain, successful 1981 — made its maiden voyage successful July 1982 and is affectionately known arsenic Mexico’s “Ambassador and Knight of the Seas.”  

Also aboard the vessel earlier its departure, Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado said the vas and its unit person “a precise circumstantial role: sharing the connection of bid and goodwill of each the Mexican radical successful each overseas larboard they proudly visit.”

With reports from El Universal, La Jornada and Record