Beauty of the Brazilian Navy

Her name, White Swan in English translation, is the alternate title of a traditional Brazilian song “The Ballad of the Seaman.”

Seeing the photograph of this lovely ship one thinks, too, of the words “All I want is a tall ship and a star to steer her by” in John Masefield’s poem “Sea Fever.”

Beautiful she undoubtedly is, but she is a working ship, too, a training vessel for recruits to the Brazilian navy who learn the basics of seamanship and continue the traditions of the past in a vessel that echoes the past and yet is equipped with modern aids to navigation.

The Cisne Branco arrived in Port-of-Spain on July 21 and left on July 24.

While she was in port Luiz Fernando de Athayde, the Brazilian Ambassador to Trinidad and Commander Leonardo Puntel, of the Cisne Branco laid a wreath on the tomb of Sergeant Bispo dos Santos Segundo who was killed while serving in the Brazilian Navy during World War II and is buried in the Military Cemetery.