Engineering:ARA Presidente Sarmiento

Short description: 1897 sail training ship

Moored at Puerto Madero, Buenos Aires
History
Argentina
Name:	Presidente Sarmiento
Namesake:	Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
Builder:	Laird Brothers, Birkenhead, England
Launched:	31 August 1897
In service:	1897
Out of service:	1961
Status:	Museum ship in Buenos Aires, Argentina
General characteristics
Type:	Sail training ship
Displacement:	2,750 tonnes
Length:	81 m (266 ft)
Beam:	13.11 m (43.0 ft)
Draught:	5.64 m (18.5 ft)
Propulsion:	Steam, 3-cylinder compound, 1,000 hp (750 kW), ship rig
National Historic Monument of Argentina

ARA Presidente Sarmiento is a museum ship in Argentina, originally built as a training ship for the Argentine Navy and named after Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, the seventh President of Argentina. It is considered to be the last intact cruising training ship from the 1890s.

History

The ship was originally built for the Argentine Naval Academy. ARA Presidente Sarmiento made thirty seven annual training cruises including six circumnavigations of the globe. The ship was retired as a seagoing vessel in 1938, but continued to serve without sails on Argentine rivers around 1950 and as a stationary training ship until 1961.

It is now maintained in its original 1898 appearance as a museum ship in Puerto Madero near downtown Buenos Aires.

Propulsion and auxiliaries

Engine

In addition to its sailing rig this ship includes a large triple expansion steam engine supplied by two coal-fired boilers exhausting through the rear stack. An additional auxiliary boiler exhausting through the forward stack provides steam for other than propulsion, including two engines driving electrical generators on the main deck (below the weather deck).

Fuel

A single coal bunker is positioned between the main and auxiliary boiler rooms

Steering

Helm

A three-wheel chain drive allows up to six helmsmen to control the rudder. Such a crew of operators was not always required due to the inclusion of an electric servo-drive for normal operation but was useful for the training of cadets.

Armament

Artillery

A gun on the deck

Four Armstrong gun mounts are positioned amidships, two on each side, with additional smaller weapons. The museum information indicates those as 5-inch pieces, but Norman Friedman identifies those as 120-mm L45 Elswick Pattern Y. Documentation on the ship shows these having had some armor, but the present installations are bare.

Torpedoes

A single torpedo scuttle using gravity expulsion exited at the bow. The scuttle has been removed and the exit port welded shut, but in the current museum configuration a torpedo is suspended in a position on the main deck ready to enter the former scuttle entrance. Additional torpedo storage is provided below this main deck.

Historic images

• 

  1873 image of the ship's namesake

• 

  1909 image of the ship

• 

  Capitan A. Brana and staff, Hamburg, 1923

• 

  Cadets honor guests, Bremerhaven, 1931

• 

  Publication allusive to its fiftieth anniversary, 1947

Museum

It is moored in Puerto Madero close to the Bicentennial Plaza and is now the ARA Presidente Sarmiento Frigate Museum.

See also

• ARA Uruguay, a smaller historic tall ship moored nearby in basin number three.
• Argentine peso moneda nacional; the ship was featured on the 5 peso coin from 1961 to 1968.

References

Bibliography

• Eger, Christopher L. (2012). "Hudson-Fulton Naval Celebration, Part I". Warship International XLIX (2): 123–151. ISSN 0043-0374. 
• Eger, Christopher L. (March 2021). "Hudson Fulton Celebration, Part II". Warship International LVIII (1): 58–81. ISSN 0043-0374. 

External links

• Google Maps location of the Presidente Sarmiento
• "Buque Museo Fragata Presidente Sarmiento". Armada Argentina. http://www.ara.mil.ar/pag.asp?idItem=112. 
• Google translation of above