'Spaniards at sea' celebrates 40 years on the airwaves aboard the Juan Sebastián de Elcano

The Dean's Program Foreign Radio of Spain, 'Spaniards at sea', has celebrated its 40th anniversary aboard the historic training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano. Among its students, the midshipman Borbón y Ortiz, the Princess of Asturias, who opened the program with a few words dedicated to the people who work at sea and to the station's listeners to congratulate 'Españoles en la mar' for its four decades of broadcasting.

“I greet from the Dominican Republic to all the Spanish men and women who work at sea and, I congratulate Radio Exterior for those 40 years in which they have listened to and attended to all those professionals in the program Spaniards at sea. There are many compatriots who dedicate their lives to fishing, the merchant navy, port infrastructure, oceanographic research, recreational boating, the care of marine resources and, of course, military naval training. From one of the stops on this training cruise I send my love to all the people who spend so much time away from Spain dedicated to the sea and who, through this program on our public radio, feel closer to home. Congratulations and thank you very much,” said the princess of Asturias in his radio 'baptism'.

It is the first time that the RNE carries out a special program from the training ship Juan Sebastián de Elcano while traveling abroad. Marta Fernandez Arenas, director and presenter of the program, and Ana Añó Ayza have presented this edition in which the work of the ship has been addressed, which each year makes a voyage as a training action and which this year completes 97 voyages.

At the controls of the most famous ship of the Spanish Navy, its commander, Luis Carreras-Presas do Campo, which has made known the work of the training ship, which trains its future officers for six months of high intensity. Months in which their midshipmen learn the most diverse subjects. The program has spoken with three of them: Daniel Loro Rodríguez, Fernando Pérez Estupiñán and Elena Jiménez Berja. Also with his teachers, Navy officers who were also midshipmen on the Juan Sebastián de Elcano: Gonzalo Rodríguez Casajús and Ida Blanco Blázquez

The voice of the sea

Fishing, marine resources, navigation, oceanographic research, naval history, merchant marine and nautical sports are protagonists of Spaniards at sea, a daily program for professionals and lovers of the sea that aired for the first time on October 15, 1984 on Radio Exterior.

In its long career, professionals such as Antón Luaces, Paco Arjona, Carlos Núñez, Antonio Szigriszt, José Antonio Pardellas Casas, José Luis Pérez Manzano or the voices that are heard today have passed by: Óscar González from Vigo, Antonio Fernández from Valencia or Marta Fernández Arenas, Coral Consuegra and Víctor García from Madrid.

The program continues to be renewed to offer the most complete and public service information related to all activities that have to do with the sea. Throughout his career he has received different awards, such as the Aquaculture Outreach Journalism Award, the Miguel Pardo Award, or the Voice of the Sea Award, among others.