Volume 47, Number 3 (1994) Summer

ARA Libertad was launched in 1956 at the Rio Santiago Naval Shipyard at La Plata, Argentina, and was commissioned into the Argentine Navy in 1963. Her 1966 world speed record involved a run from Cape Race co the English Channel in eight days, twelve hours. She has also won, several times, the Sail Training Association's "Boston Teapot" trophy, awarded each year to the vessel making good the longest day's run under sail with at least half of its crew in training.

Ship-rigged and steel-hulled, the vessel is 340 feet long overall and forty-five in beam, draws almost twenty-one feet, and displaces 3,765 tons at full load. Two diesel engines driving two shafts give a maximum speed of13.5 knots under power. Libertad operates from the Argentine Naval Academy at Buenos Aires, carries twenty-four officers and 187 petty officers and seamen, and can embark 150 midshipmen.