Radio România Internațional

Tag: shipyard

  • February 7, 2024

    February 7, 2024

    EU STRASBOURG The unity of the UE is being
    tested, said the president of Romania in his address before the European
    Parliament on Wednesday, as
    part of a debate in the This is Europe series. According to the Romanian
    official, instability has reached alarming levels in the EU. The European
    Union must improve the efficiency of its decision-making processes, and Romania
    is fully engaged in this effort, he added. As for the war in neighbouring
    Ukraine, Klaus Iohannis said Europeans must stand by Ukraine and its people. Prior to the address, the Romanian official had
    a meeting with the president of the EP, Roberta Metsola, and discussed Romania’s
    Schengen accession, the war in Ukraine and the neighbouring R. of Moldova. Romania’s
    full Schengen accession as soon as possible, with its land borders as well,
    will considerably strengthen the Union and its security and will facilitate
    cohesion and cooperation among member states, the Romanian official argued. In
    turn, Metsola said Europe would be stronger with Romania in the Eurozone and the
    Schengen area, and told Romanians it was important for them to take part in
    June’s elections for the EP and not to take Europe for granted.


    MOLDOVA For the Republic of Moldova, carrying on and
    consolidating strategic relations with neighbouring Romania in all sectors is a
    priority, was the message brought to Bucharest by Chişinău’s new foreign
    minister, Mihai Popşoi. He had talks with his Romanian counterpart, Luminiţa
    Odobescu, and was also received by PM Marcel Ciolacu, who emphasised the interest
    in developing joint projects benefitting the citizens of both states. Romania will
    continue to support Moldova in its EU accession negotiations, the Romanian
    official promised.


    FARMERS
    The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced
    the EC was dropping a proposal to halve the use of pesticides across the EU,
    and explained this had become a symbol of polarisation. The move seems to be a
    concession to the farmers protesting in many EU member states. Meanwhile, the
    EC proposed last week a partial derogation from rules obliging farmers to keep
    certain areas non-productive, and a limitation of Ukrainian imports, while also
    promising to streamline the Common Agricultural Policy.


    NAVAL The Damen Shipyard in Galaţi (south-eastern
    Romania) will build a state-of-the-art multifunctional vessel for the
    Portuguese Navy. The ship will be able to conduct ocean research missions,
    search and rescue as well as emergency aid missions, and will be equipped with a
    UAV launching system. Damen Group was awarded the construction works following
    an EU call for tenders. Funding will be provided under the EU Recovery and Resilience
    Mechanism.


    MIDDLE EAST The US secretary of state
    Antony Blinken is in Israel today, at a time when Tel Aviv is analysing
    the response given by Hamas to a proposed truce, including hostage releases,
    after 4 months of war that have seen countless victims. Blinken, whose country
    is a close ally of Israel, said he would discuss the Hamas answer with the
    Israeli authorities today, as part of his 5th tour in the Middle
    East since October 7. The US secretary of
    state, who has visited Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
    Qatar, is to travel next to the West Bank, an autonomous Palestinian territory
    occupied by Israel since 1967.


    TENNIS The Romanian tennis player Sorana Cîrstea plays today in the
    eighth-finals of the WTA 500 tournament in Abu Dhabi (UAE), against third-seed
    Maria Sakkari of Greece (9 WTA). Cîrstea (26 WTA), leads 2-1 head-to-head, the
    Greek player having won the last match 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the second round at
    Cincinnati. (AMP)

  • The history of the Romanian navy

    The history of the Romanian navy

    The Romanian military navy was established rather late, in the second half of the 19th century. We recall that back then the south-eastern province of Dobrogea was integrated into then the Romanian Kingdom in the wake of the independence war of 1877-1878. The Romanian navy evolved around an icon: the Mircea brig, designed and used, from the very beginning, as a training ship. The Mircea brig would soon become a legendary vessel. It sailed into the Romanian Black Seas territorial waters at a time when all the countrys institutions developed following a predominantly Western pattern, at once going through a process of modernization. And that included the Romanian navy.



    The legend of the Mircea brig, baptized with that name as a tribute to the medieval ruler Mircea the Elder, actually has two parts: there were in fact two vessels, which were iconic for two development stages in Romanian navy. The first ship, the original one, reached Romania in 1882. It was a brig in its own right. The second ship, which is functional to this day, was a bark-type sailboat. It was also known as Mircea, so the collective mindset associates the latter vessel with the original brig.



    Mircea Tarhoaca is the current commander of Mircea training ship.



    Mircea Tarhoaca:



    “The Mircea brig was a two-masted ship built in a shipyard nearby London. It had been used by the Royal Navy of that time as a training ship for the training of the new generations of naval officers. It was used until about the mid-1920s when those responsible realized the needs of the navy were sensibly greater, so a much bigger ship was needed, therefore todays Mircea brig was commissioned at the Hamburg shipyard, known as Blohm und Voss. The vessel is one of the four other sister ships that are still operational. Only one of them was turned into a museum, in a town in northern Germany. Each ship, that including the one were speaking about today, has had historical voyages. The present-day ship, in its 82-year old history, crossed the Atlantic Ocean three times. The first voyage was the one in 1976, when it participated in the United States Bicentennial, 200 years were celebrated since the United States Declaration of Independence had been signed. Then it was in 2004, while the last voyage we had was the one in 2009, when I took part in it myself, in my capacity as a training officer.”



    Todays training ship is a Class A bark-type sailboat. It is 43 meters tall, it has 23 sails with a spread of sails of 1,700 square meters all told. It was built between 1938 and 1939. May 17, 1939 was the day it sailed into the port of Constanta for the first time. Then, as well as now, the forepart of the ship had the image of Mircea the Elder, clad in a red blouse and a red cloak and wearing the princely crown. Generation after generation of cadets after the next has been trained on board this ship.



    Commander Mircea Tarhoaca:


    “It has been a training vessel since 1939. It saw better days, it saw worse days, sometimes, according to the course of events in history. For instance, in 1946, the ship was requisitioned by the Russians, but was given back later. It saw periods of time when it had undergone major repair and modernization works. For instance, in 1966 in the very ship yard where it was built, then in the year 2000, when repair works were performed in Braila shipyard. But each year, or something like that, the ship was placed in a shipyard and underwent modernization operations. We may be 82 years old, yet we have on-board modern equipment that meets the present demands of instruction and training for the Naval Academy students.



    The Mircea training ship has an accommodation capacity for a 200-strong crew, of which half can be cadets. In 2019, when it turned 80, the famous sailboat set sail on its initial historical voyage once again. However, this time the Mircea brig sailed from Constanta to the shipyard in Hamburg, where it was born.